In response to #18 , lets call it cannabis toxicity with psychosis. Recently saw 2 of the worst psychoses I have seen in many years. Bizarre and close to lethal. I do believe like most mind altering drugs that some people are just more prone to severe adverse reactions. How you would know ahead of time is unknown.
My son uses weed. It is legal in our neighboring district (DC) and not criminal in our state, Maryland. But he attends an OOS state university (top 20) in a state which still prosecutes marijuana as a felony.
He has Crohn’s disease. Until his diagnosis at age 14 he was continuously below the weight curve on the growth chart. He was a low birth weight newborn and a failure to thrive infant. Numerous tests throughout his school years were inconclusive though all indicated a gastroenterology problem. He was always hungry, but there was little he could eat. Many foods made him sick, and when I made him eat an apple slice, he vomited. I feel such shame about that.
It was such a relief to have a definitive diagnosis at age 14 that when the clinical nurse for his GI mentioned that I should take some to grieve I actually laughed. My boy receives intravenous treatments every eight weeks. But he sought out marijuana on his own from research on the internet to keep his appetite high enough to maintain a weight near his ideal. We never encouraged using but see very clearly that he is feeling strong and confident now.
I am fearful of the effect of drug use on his brain development. And I fear that he will be caught and prosecuted. But I am grateful that he feels a personal boost that can overcome the devastation that crohns has wrought on his body image and self confidence.
Let there be more studies.
I have a close friend who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last May. The initial rounds of chemo were horrific–her family didn’t think she’d survive. It was difficult to watch her suffer–clearly more difficult for her. Anyway, her oncologist prescribed Marinol (man-made marijuana in pill form). It made a huge difference for my friend, she was able to eat a little (couldn’t take anything before and lost something like 45 pounds in a few months) and no longer had sever nausea. The Marinol really did help her. She’s now taking a six-month break from chemo to get stronger and shes doing physical therapy. She stopped taking Marinol because she wanted to start driving herself to PT appointments.
There are several approved thc derivative drugs. However, they aren’t as fun as the real thing.
All drugs are held to the same standard for approval in this country. If marijuana is so great, than it should go through the same rigorous trials as every other drug on the market. However, it will never get approval for even a stage 1 trial. To move into human trials, you need to have standardized doses. This is normally not an issue but for an organic product, it will be hard to meet the stringent dosing requirements.
People need to remember, marijuana is not legal anywhere in this country. Anyone familiar with drug law in this country will know if state and federal law conflict, the stronger law prevails. Even if marijuana is magically changed by the DEA to a C-2, it doesn’t make it legal. The only way for an individual to have a C-2 legally is with a prescription. FDA regulates prescription drugs and they won’t approve smokeable marijuana for a variety of reasons.
The placebo effect can be very strong in certain areas. Thus until they do placebo based double blind trials, nothing can be said about its effectiveness. Somehow, in this discussion about marijuana, the fact there are approved thc drugs gets lost. Many of the marijuana proponents avoid the trial issues because they don’t know how it would stack up. They think marijuana should be exempted from the drug regulation process.
I recently attended a presentation of the PIER program. PIER attempts to locate kids when they are in the very beginning stages of psychosis. The presenter has been in this field for 15 years. She said she is convinced that marijuana can CAUSE psychosis. The problem is that the psychosis doesn’t go away even if the person stops using the drug. She said it’s very frightening how much damage marijuana is causing. 
The ones I saw did resolve after dc’ing use.
I saw prednisone (steroid)-induced psychosis. It was terrifying but the drug was needed for treating an auto-immune disease. We were all relieved that it resolved as soon as she stopped the drug.
It’s scary to read that the psychosis MAY continue for MJ even AFTER the MJ is discontinued! Wow!
There is a 2/24/2016 article on NPR about overdosing and intoxication on edible MJ in CO, especially by tourists. Sorry, can’t figure out how to link the article. It’s consistent with the presentation I heard last May at the medical conference.