One of my stoner friends in high school 10-15 years ago was dating an autistic girl, and he mentioned that it had some medical benefit for them.

Obviously it was ‘pothead science’ without a mechanism etc but it has been a thing anecdotally for at least as long as the medical push has existed.

To be fair, I've yet to hear of a disease stoner science doesn't say weed treats.

If the definition of disease is any condition that puts you in a state of dis-ease, then a drug that promotes a state of ease would be a valid treatment!

Therefore marijuana is a cure-all. ;)

Pliny the Elder would be so proud of me.

> schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis. I have no idea why

I think that there are a number of reasons for this. CBD, exploration/play of mental states, and the hundred+ other cannabinoids may all be a factor.

First, cannabis can contain CBD, which has strong, known anti anxiety and anti-psychotic effects. Couldn't a person vulnerable to episodes recognize this effect when enjoying a higher CBD strain, then seek it out again?

It is very unfortunate for these people that prohibition selected for high THC, low CBD strains.

Second, it can be a great benefit to know, from experience, that smoking a herb can bring on near-psychosis. Certainly, some people try to get a handle on their condition by 'playing' with it in this way.

Learning about the physical feelings and clues that go along with the early stages of an episode may help in some way to feel in control, and even learn to recognize and change the course of a budding episode.

Again, it is more than unfortunate that prohibition and propaganda have prevented any real exploration of these possibilities. For thousands of years shamans have played with mental states, and it was seen as not just positive but necessary.

It is too often seen as heresy if you suggest that psychosis doesn't actually need to be treated with hardcore pharmaceuticals, for life. I do believe though that it could - at least sometimes - be better treated as a mental state which can be self-recognized, and integrated.

Third, cannabis contains hundreds of cannabinoids other than THC and CBD. Some of these may have positive effects on all sorts of things related to schizophrenia and psychosis - mood, humour, insight, metabolism, gut health, etc.

Studies which only examine THC and CBD in isolation can only ever understand so much - these interactions may be a lot more complex than we commonly guess.

Ah, the old shaman argument. The dude living in an essentially black-and-white wasteland up north with months of darkness. He strongly believes in the need to go consult the ancestors, moves in a hypnotic fashion, beats a monotone rythm on the drum for hours staring into a fire. And thus needs a minuscule plant-based push to have a profound experience. And still the old stories always have the element of being very careful and struggling to return from the other side. And then there’s a modern everyday flashing-lights-and-technicolor life kind of dude just looking to have some fun. The context is too different for “they did it thus it’s natural” argument to work.

I don't think you understand my argument - and I certainly don't understand yours.

My argument is wholly secular and realistic. It's summed up as 'exploration/play of mental states', which applies even to your flashing-lights-and-technicolor straw-man.

It doesn't rely on 'hypnotic movements' or 'rhythmic drumming'; or a monomyth, or cultural surroundings, or 'they did it thus it's natural'. Or flashing lights, or wastelands, or ancestral visions, etc.

Perhaps you could read my comment again, with a little more care and a lot less caricature.

> schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis

This sounds a lot like saying that people with a predisposition to lung cancer are drawn to cigarettes.

My understanding is that schizophernia is a predisposed condition. Cannabis can trigger it but not really cause it. (That's at least what I got from talking to a professional). One clue to find out whether you are predisposed is if you have someone in the family (related genetically) who has at-birth mental health issues. Then stay a gazillion miles clear of any drugs.

If you don’t have it and then taking it makes you have it then that is causing it

Right. Which is why there’s no science to back up the claim that marijuana causes schizophrenia.

Marijuana causing schizophrenia would be easy to determine if nobody was schizophrenic before the reefer. Before then they were just possessed by demons.

There's a big difference between a direct cause and a potential trigger for a condition with specific endogenous prerequisites.

Is it like a catalyst?

Sometimes, but not always. In chemistry, catalysts can help initiate or facilitate chemical reactions, but there is often another input required to kick start the process (e.g. heat).

We know that cannabis can act as a catalyst for schizophrenia, but we also know that not everyone who is predisposed to schizophrenia develops it 100% of the time after cannabis use. There are degrees of predisposition, and a bunch of other factors that contribute to this.

Does a freezer make ice, or does water make ice?

A trigger requires a gun to actually do anything.

> at-birth mental health issues

many of the most common mental health conditions (personality disorders, and schizophrenia) don't appear till the end of adolescence.

> My understanding is that schizophernia is a predisposed condition. Cannabis can trigger it but not really cause it.

If something is flammable, and so predisposed to burning, and you hold a lit match to it, you did cause the fire. You didn't just trigger it.

This is a weird argument, because “trigger” and “cause” here are exact synonyms.

See, you just have to draw a causal diagram and enumerate all possible counterfactual worlds…

Your analogy isn't equivalent to what was said. To be 1-1 with the OP, you'd be arguing that the lighter caused something to be flammable. Causing a *fire* is something else.

Similarly someone can be schizophrenic but have an *episode* caused by weed. The weed didn't make them schizophrenic but it did cause an episode to happen.

This allegory only works if you’re willing to accept that some people are inflammable.

I think it's just that schizophrenic people are often depressed, and depressed people are drawn to drugs in order to alleviate the negative feelings, one of the drugs being cannabis.

Schizophrenic people are also very often smokers, but there's a good reason for this; nicotine is actually a very effective treatment for schizophrenia symptoms, better than the actual medicines.

(Of course, smoking is still bad for you.)

Schizophrenia is a disease, not a "type of people".

With enough dose anyone can become psychotic on THC.

This is equivalent to saying with enough liquor, anyone can be transformed into a drunken aggressive person.

I don't think it's as absolute as you're saying.