Illicit Drugs

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From the Abstract

Cannabis has been shown to be teratogenic in cells, animals and humans. Particular targets of prenatal exposure include brain, heart and blood vessels and chromosomal segregation…

Studies in cells, together with the above mentioned epidemiology, implicate cannabidiol, cannabichromene, cannabidivarin and other cannabinoids in significant genotoxicity and/or epigenotoxicity. Notch signalling has recently been shown to be altered by cannabinoids, which is highly pertinent to morphogenesis of the neuraxis and cardiovasculature, and also to congenital and inheritable cancer induction. 

It is felt that subtle neurobehavioural psychosocial and educational deficits will likely be the most common expression of cannabinoid teratology at the population level. 

The far reaching implications of this wide spectrum of neuroteratological, pediatric cardiological and other defects and deficits should be carefully considered in increasingly liberal paradigms. Hence it is shown that the disparate presentations of cannabis teratology relate directly and closely to the distribution of CB1R’s across the developing embryo and account for the polymorphous clinical presentations.

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• Largest study of its kind found that 7% of adult depression could be prevented
• Drug has also been linked to suicidal thoughts and attempts 
• Researchers say tackling the use of millions of under 18s should be a priority  

PUBLISHED:  14 February 2019

Smoking cannabis in your teenage years raises the risk of depression and suicide in later life, a landmark new study has found. 

Researchers from the US and UK have revealed the drug could impair a child's brain to the extent it triggers mental health disorders later in life.  

In the largest research of its kind, experts from Oxford University and McGill University estimated that over half a million adults in the UK and US could be saved from mental health disorders by avoiding the drug as a teenager. 

The teams have now warned that cannabis, legal in several US states and used by millions of young people is a significant public health risk with 'devastating consequences'. They have urgently called for officials to make tackling use of the drug a priority. 

'It's a big public health and mental health problem, we think,' co-author Professor Andrea Cipriani, from the University of Oxford, said.

'The number of people who are exposed to cannabis, especially in this vulnerable age, is very high and I think this should be a priority for public health and the mental health sector.'

The researchers, at McGill University and the University of Oxford, analysed data from 11 studies involving more than 23,000 individuals.

For complete article 

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Major study reveals drug 'damages children's brains' and half a MILLION adults could avoid mental-health disorder if they had turned down marijuana

• Largest study of its kind found that 7% of adult depression could be prevented
• Drug has also been linked to suicidal thoughts and attempts 
• Researchers say tackling the use of millions of under 18s should be a priority  

PUBLISHED:  14 February 2019

Smoking cannabis in your teenage years raises the risk of depression and suicide in later life, a landmark new study has found. 

Researchers from the US and UK have revealed the drug could impair a child's brain to the extent it triggers mental health disorders later in life.  

In the largest research of its kind, experts from Oxford University and McGill University estimated that over half a million adults in the UK and US could be saved from mental health disorders by avoiding the drug as a teenager. 

The teams have now warned that cannabis, legal in several US states and used by millions of young people is a significant public health risk with 'devastating consequences'. They have urgently called for officials to make tackling use of the drug a priority. 

'It's a big public health and mental health problem, we think,' co-author Professor Andrea Cipriani, from the University of Oxford, said.

'The number of people who are exposed to cannabis, especially in this vulnerable age, is very high and I think this should be a priority for public health and the mental health sector.'

The researchers, at McGill University and the University of Oxford, analysed data from 11 studies involving more than 23,000 individuals.

For complete article

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