Suicide and marijuana

little maggie said:

Let me just say that the research quoted was just one aspect of a larger perspective that doesn't disagree with anything here and that is not trying to blame drugs for suicide.
People commit suicide because they are in unbearable pain and are using drugs as an attempt to manage the pain. I still thought it was interesting that of the many people who have a mental health diagnosis and use drugs or alcohol the few with anxiety that actually commit suicide tend to be using marijuana instead of alcohol or another drug.

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Suicide is quite prevalent in other countries where the use of MJ is almost unheard of due to stiff penalty, lack of availability, cost, etc., , i.e., null factor relevant to causation of suicide. Is it safe to suggest that suicide rates would immediately increase if MJ were easily/safely accessible? Personally, I don't believe that MJ flips the mental/emotional suicide switch to "ON".

But the majority of suicide in this country are middle aged white males or the elderly. Men because they tend to use more lethal methods than women. I would have thought adolescents and young adults prior to this.
Again no one who works in suicidology thinks that marijuana causes suicide so repeating that it doesn't is beating a dead horse. Ugh- horrible image.
(I just completed the training in suicide that is required for my license in Washington state which is why I've been thinking so much about this.)

MJ can cause severe anxiety and they say it has been a key factor in the manifestation of schizophrenia in young men. What they don't say is schizophrenia usually appears in young men who may have a predisposition for it. The MJ just makes it worse.
I know several schizophrenics and they tend to avoid MJ as it makes them much worse. I also lost two very dear friends to antidepressants. They were both taking the same medication and both hung themselves. The health warnings on the box said one of the side effects was suicidal tendencies.
I think if you were in a bad place and were suffering to the point that you wanted to end it all then MJ could push you over the edge. But then a lot of things could be the trigger.
Like all drugs MJ should come with health warnings so if people do start to feel unwell when using it at least they have some kind of information to explain why.

I agree. Schizophrenia usually does develop in late adolescence and it is sad to see someone deteriorate that way. My best friend from high school had a bad trip on acid and ended up dropping out of college because he couldn't function. He blamed the trip but he also told me some of the odd private things he'd done while I knew him in high school. He was just able to keep it together better but the schizophrenia would have been too much to hide even if he hadn't used acid.

Ending ones life is the final personal choice, sadly the act carries so much baggage we seldom deal with it openly and objectively so folks end up making the wrong choices at times. Sad but its how some cultures are dealing with it.

Many people walking around with undiagnosed mental illnesses in our country. There's a stigma if you have a mental illness there is something wrong with you. Often they will self medicate to feel normal whether it's Schizophrenia or Bipolar. I would think that cannabis might be better than some of the other things they could medicate with, like meth and Heroin.

No Sativas for folks with mental illness, only Indicas.

I have a relative with diagnosed Shizophrenia and he doesn't like to take his prescribed medicine. He was in the hospital just recently and he had some medical issues he was dealing with other than the mental illness. They needed to see what drugs he was taking. The hospital did a toxicology test and he had been taking meth. His body is starting to fall apart and he is in his 40s.

TeeJay1952 said:

I dislike ascribing cause and effect to end of life decisions. If I use any substance and at the end of life choose to end said same then the substance is held as a factor. IE A lifelong partaker of our med decides it is time to fold then the meds must be a factor. Never mind that the meds got them to this point. Perhaps is was the use of meds that staved off the fatal decision for decades.

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Yes... There is quite a lot of this...

1DMF said:

But I have yet seen anyone driven to suicide because they couldn't score a bag of weed or because the just did!

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That could be me. If I try to go 24 hours without using cannabis, my legs start moving (spasticity from multiple sclerosis), and they don't stop. It's fucking miserable, and I probably won't allow myself to live that way if I somehow end up without access to cannabis for, say, a couple weeks.

It almost certainly won't be me, but it could be me.

Everyone who has ever committed suicide has also breathed. Causation or correlation?

If anything were to drive me over the edge it will be chronic intractable pain. The worst part is that there are these short occasions where I can be almost pain free for up to 12 hours after some types of therapy. But it never lasts longer, and usually lasts much less time. Now what has happened a couple of times is that I have a chronic pain flareup combined with my special, sudden onset 'mystery illness', and thats the lowest I think I am capable of getting.

The basis for the belief that Mary Jane & suicide go together is the same as that it is a gateway drug. The link is slightly more statistically common than the link between suicide and breathing air.

What I am saying is that there are commonalities among everything. The more often you have someone who has issues, the more often you find people looking to fill a void in their life. That void can be filled by hoarding newspapers. That void can be filled by drinking until you can't remember. That void can be filled by being an abusive asshole. That void can be filled by lying to yourself. That void can be filled by getting high. That void can be filled by gardening, collecting glass kittens, collecting feral cats... anything. Some people never fill that void and desperately take themselves out of the equation.

It sucks that people have problems. It sucks that some leave us behind, adding to ours while seemingly ending theirs. To point the finger at weed without realizing that it is much closer to a band-aid than a causal factor is simply blindly ignorant.

I had two people diagnosed as bipolar who used MJ a lot, among other drugs, that took their own lives. MJ was their drug of choice but wasn't what caused their suicide .... not staying on their meds and being bipolar did. I was extremely angry at them for taking their own lives. They were both in a tremendous amount of mental pain when not on their meds but when they were on their meds they didn't feel 'Real' so their meds weren't an effective treatment.

I agree with the premise that MJ probably extended their time on earth.

One of the side effects of a federal MJ suppression policy is the lack of trustworthy information. This puts both patients and practitioners at risk as they try to manage treatment based on anecdotal, demonizing or overly optimistic information. Hopefully at some point this will all change and the truth will be widely available to all involved.

howie105 said:

One of the side effects of a federal MJ suppression policy is the lack of trustworthy information. This puts both patients and practitioners at risk as they try to manage treatment based on anecdotal, demonizing or overly optimistic information. Hopefully at some point this will all change and the truth will be widely available to all involved.

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That's the worst of it all. Mix that in with the propaganda I was taught in school, there is almost no trust worthy info out. I can't tell you the how much crazy stuff/misinformation I heard from users and non-users it just boggles me what some people will take as truth and then go on and spread that misinformation to others.

Little bit back more on topic. I think some of people forget this marijuana is still a drug and a psychoactive one at that too. People have to understand that they are messing around with their reality and conscious. I have personally know alot of people can use everyday and still have a grip on their reality but I did know a user that did go off the deep end. To be fair though, I believe there was some underlying issues present in that said user.
All I am trying to say is that marijuana should be respected and not underestimated in its power. Some people do lose that respect and do pay for it.

The Undecided said:

That's the worst of it all. Mix that in with the propaganda I was taught in school, there is almost no trust worthy info out. I can't tell you the how much crazy stuff/misinformation I heard from users and non-users it just boggles me what some people will take as truth and then go on and spread that misinformation to others.

Little bit back more on topic. I think some of people forget this marijuana is still a drug and a psychoactive one at that too. People have to understand that they are messing around with their reality and conscious. I have personally know alot of people can use everyday and still have a grip on their reality but I did know a user that did go off the deep end. To be fair though, I believe there was some underlying issues present in that said user.
All I am trying to say is that marijuana should be respected and not underestimated in its power. Some people do lose that respect and do pay for it.

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I tend to believe that MJ for many helps to stabilize an unstable grasp of reality while enabling also a more calm acceptance of it. The alarmist's view of it I think is far from any good that may otherwise come of exaggeration and fear mongering.

@Aimless Ryan I feel for your pain. This is not what I use MJ for, so can only surmise about the benefits it brings you.

But I would say if 'heaven forbid', you couldn't take it anymore, unfortunately it would have been the pain that pushed you over the edge, not some crazed addiction to MJ and your inability to acquire some.

As many other have said, there are usually other contributing factors to why someone takes their life, and I don't believe , "I like weed, I can't score weed, think I'll kill myself" has ever been a motivator, or if it has, then I think the victim / patient had some other serious mental issues.

IMO many suicides are due to pain, be it physical or mental anguish, not because of dope.

Now could it be argued that MJ has saved lives of those on the edge, quite possibly, but I don't think MJ is a wonder anti-suicide drug either, a band aid on a broken leg is only superficial treatment.

I used to work with a guy that took his life. Yes, we smoked weed together but I do not believe the two are related.

He had OCD and some personal issues and just quit coming into work for a month or so. The boss had me step up and do his job while he was away.

When he finally did return, I saw many self inflicted cuts and I thought he needed some real help.

I remember the boss asking me if I thought we should keep him on and I said " no, I don't have a use for him here"

If I had a time machine, that would be my first stop.