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Relations to Substance Misuse, Mental Health, and Pain Experience - Journal of Addiction Medicine: doi: 10.1097/ADM.0000000000000493
Results: Results suggest that, compared to opioid use alone, opioid and cannabis co-use was associated with elevated anxiety and depression symptoms, as well as tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and sedative use problems, but not pain experience.
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"I've chilled out on weed. I used to love it, but now I think it's the one thing that gets in my way," he admitted. Evans further opened up about the effects weed has had on his productivity. "It zaps your motivation. I think apathy kind of bleeds in, and you start to think, 'Well, I'm not apathetic, I just don't feel like doing that.' And it's like, no—you would feel like doing that if you weren't stoned. And, you know—I'm 37. I can't be smoking weed all the time. That's crazy," he said.
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One of the state’s most vocal opponents of legalizing recreational marijuana in recent years has been Dr. Deepak D’Souza, a research scientist and professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.
In testimony before the legislature and in his role as a member of the state medical marijuana program’s board of physicians, an advisory group for lawmakers, D’Souza has laid out what he says are the dangers of legalization. His four areas of concern are the impact on young people and the developing brain; the anticipated increase in cannabis use disorder; the negative impact on people with serious mental illness; and increased motor vehicle accidents.
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Mar 19, 2019 Mark Gold, MD
Limited information exists on marijuana use and male reproductive health. A recent study from Duke University evaluated differences in sperm quality resulting from tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) exposure in both rats and humans. Findings suggest that paternal marijuana use, prior to conception, may present epigenetic risks to potential offspring.
Key Findings
- Individuals who used marijuana can have higher and also can have significantly lower sperm concentrations, compared to those who did not, posing potential complications for fertility.
- THC-exposed sperm was associated with significantly altered DNA, in both rat and human samples.
- Associations were even stronger among individuals with higher levels of THC in their urine, implying a “dose-response relationship” such that chronic marijuana users may be impacted more severely.
- Authors identified three unique potential genetic pathways modified by THC exposure.
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In this research:
- Some teens' marijuana use has been linked to disrupted communication between two key regions in the brain's reward circuitry at age 20.
- Disrupted communication between the regions was associated with poorer psychosocial functioning at age 22.
In a recent NIDA-supported study, males from low-income backgrounds who used marijuana in escalating frequency throughout their teen years exhibited disrupted connectivity at age 20 in a brain circuit that links rewarding experiences with motivation and mood. The study also found that disruption in the circuit at age 20 was associated with lower educational achievement and higher risk for depression at age 22.