BACKGROUND There is limited knowledge about how environmental factors affect the course of bipolar disorder (BD). Cannabis has been proposed as a potential risk factor for poorer course of illness, but the role of cannabis use has not been studied in a first treatment BD I sample. METHODS The present study examines the associations between course of illness in first treatment BD I and continu...

In a qualitative study, we investigated the medical motives of 100 Norwegian cannabis users, none of whom had legal access to medical cannabis. Cannabis was used therapeutically for conditions such as multiple sclerosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and rheumatism, as well as for quality of life conditions such as quality of sleep, relaxation and wellbeing. The borders between medic...

OBJECTIVE To examine evidence on three claims that: 1) the THC content of Australian cannabis plants has increased up to 30 times; 2) problems experienced by cannabis users have increased in Australia in recent years; and 3) an increase in THC content is the most likely explanation of any increase in cannabis-related problems. METHODS These claims were assessed by examining data: 1) on THC po...

AIMS To test whether speed of transition from initiation use to subsequent use of cannabis is associated with likelihood of later cannabis dependence and other outcomes, and whether transition speed is attributable to genetic or environmental factors. DESIGN Cross-sectional interview study. SETTING Australia. PARTICIPANTS A total of 2239 twins and siblings who reported using cannabis at l...

Recent research has clarified a number of important questions concerning adverse effects of cannabis on health. A causal role of acute cannabis intoxication in motor vehicle and other accidents has now been shown by the presence of measurable levels of Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the blood of injured drivers in the absence of alcohol or other drugs, by surveys of driving under the in...

S ince the early 1970s, when cannabis fi rst began to be widely used [1], the proportion of young people who have used cannabis has steeply increased and the age of fi rst use has declined [2,3]. Most cannabis users now start in the mid-to-late teens [1], an important period of psychosocial transition when misadventures can have large adverse effects on a young person's life chances. Dependence...

A recent United Nations Children’s Fund study on the well-being of children1 found that Canadian adolescents (aged 11 to 15 years) have the highest rate of cannabis use among the 29 advanced economies of the world; an estimated 28% had used cannabis at least once in the past year. The 2011 Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey, which surveyed older youth, found slightly lower rates of...

Introduction: Cannabis has been used for medical purposes across the world for centuries. As states and countries implement medical and recreational cannabis policies, increasing numbers of people are using cannabis pharmacotherapy for pain. There is a theoretical rationale for cannabis' efficacy for pain management, although the subjective pain relief from cannabis may not match objective meas...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies are central to Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). Alcohol studies demonstrate the theoretical and clinical utility of applying both SCT constructs. This study examined the relationship between refusal self-efficacy and outcome expectancies in a sample of cannabis users, and tested formal mediational models. DESIGN Patients referre...