While trying to avoid hijacking this thread, I am wondering, SkaiSW, what your references are for your comment that drugs and alcohol prior to age 25 increase risk of developing schizophrenia. Unless you are confusing cause and effect and are merely stating studies that indicate that those already predisposed to such illness have a higher use of substances in an attempt to self-medicate. How did we get from under age in LV to mental illness?

Agree this is off-topic - but the info on alcohol and drugs increasing the risk of schizophrenia is incorrect - except for specifically drug-induced schizophrenia - which is different from the garden variety.

In drug-induced (which is usually not permanent) the cause is usually massive doses of a variety of drugs over a short period of time. Generally when the patient has been calmed down (often in the hospital) and the drugs clear the system the delusions and paranoia subside.

But - it is true that classic life-long schizophrenia most often first strikes young people in the 15 to 25 age range. And many of them, in an attempt to self-medicate, turn to alcohol and street drugs. So - the problems can be simultaneous - but it's often the schizophrenia that leads to drug and alcohol use - rather than the other way around.

A medline search on marijuana and schizophenia yeilded about 300 articles. The first review article (while research is early) I found indicated the authors believed that
marijuana is in fact a risk factor for the future development of schizophrenia at least in genetically prone individuals. My judgement is that when this happens, when early review authors conclude a causal association, they are usually right.
YOu are correct that I am much quicker to jump to a causal conclusion than most epidemiologists, and sometimes I am wrong. But I am so very tired of relevant causal relationships taking half a century to reach the lay public. Physicians knew by 1940 that smoking caused lung cancer, but it wasn't until 1964 that the first warning labels on cigarettes appeared. Physicians and the public health community knew 20 years ago that sexually transmitted HPV was the major cause of cervical cancer, but it wasn't until the last two years that this reached the lay public-- and this only happened because a drug company wanted to sell its vaccine. Nowadays there are many epidemiologists who say that vaccines do not cause autism, and maybe they don't. But why doesn't NIH sponser a definitive study to find out???? But the sad thing is that if vaccines cause autism because of inflammation, as I have heard one physician say, wouldn't preventing it be as simple as giving the child ibuprofen before and after vaccination? I don't know but it is worth investigating. Tell me, just what is the harm in concluding that marijuana smoked during the teen years is a risk factor for development of schizophrenia until prooven otherwise. Please see below.
<4>
Unique Identifier
17691420
Status
MEDLINE
Authors
Arias Horcajadas F.
Authors Full Name
Arias Horcajadas, Francisco.
Institution
Unidad de Psiquiatria, Fundacion Hospital Alcorcon, Madrid. [email protected]
Title
[A review about cannabis use like as risk factor of schizophrenia]. [Review] [108 refs] [Spanish]
Source
Adicciones. 19(2):191-203, 2007.
Abstract
Cannabis use is extremely prevalent in young people and there is controversy over the psychosocial harm of this use. One risk stands out--that of the possibility of cannabis being a risk factor of an illness as serious and incapacitating as schizophrenia. An avalanche of information has emerged recently on this subject, which it is essential to review. There are a number of cohort studies that support the idea of cannabis use as inducing psychotic symptoms and a precipitating factor of schizophrenia. These studies haves some methodological limitations, which we subject to critical analysis, such as the different outcome evaluations, heterogeneity in the measurements of vulnerability to the psychosis, the difficulty in controlling the possible confusion factors and the inadequate interpretation of the results obtained. In conclusion, we consider that the use of cannabis is clearly associated with the inducement of psychotic symptoms and is, possibly, a risk factor of schizophrenia in people with a genetic or psychosocial vulnerability, preventive methods being necessary in high-risk groups. These are fundamentally those of users of large quantities of cannabis and those who initiate use in adolescence. [References: 108]
Publication Type
English Abstract. Journal Article. Review.

You can't believe everything you read...What does drinking have to do w/smoking dope. Drinking is legal (last time I checked), smoking dope is not. What does any of your diatribe have to do w/Vegas & the OPs question ? Please take your misinformed opinions to a relevant place. BTW, you must be a heck of a good time in Vegas. Are you a quack ? Or, do you just want to be one when you grow up ?

Well if sweeteepie007 wasn't scared away before, she surely is now! How on earth did we get to a discussion of schizophrenia and wild drug use on a simple question about going to Las Vegas?

(Please don't bother to answer; that was a rhetorical question only)

Well, since there was a discussion about drugs.... there are drug/bomb sniffing drugs throughout the Wynn. You will never find drugs in that place.

Mirage's nightclub Jet has a strict policy posted in bathrooms that if you are found to have drugs you will be prosecuted.

Manday Bay is the place that always smells like pot. More lax.

Well, they better not come to Austin and try to smoke pot. They might get a ticket!

<i>there are drug/bomb sniffing drugs throughout the Wynn. You will never find drugs in that place.</i>

Did you mean to say drug/bomb sniffing <i>dogs</i>? Anyway, if there are any, they certainly aren't noticeable. I was there Saturday night.

Actually I too was there over the whole weekend (guest) and they were in many places just walking and sniffing. Cops were all over Tryst. Tourists were having their pics taken with the german shepherds.

Yet another update, there are cops and undercover cops everywhere not only for your basic trouble but cops in regular clothing looking for drug dealers or any other type of underworld activity. They are everywhere and people just don't realize it. Las Vegas is a fascinating town in so many ways.