Teens have access to vastly more potent cannabis than their parents had at their age. Parents need to understand the risks, including psychosis
Teens have access to vastly more potent cannabis than their parents had at their age. Parents need to understand the risks, including psychosis
I worked inpatient psych for a long time, and can tell you first-hand the link between psychosis and cannabis is real. No, this does not mean “if you smoke weed you’re going to get psychotic!” What it does mean is that if you’re someone with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia (e.g. you have a known family history) weed is a potential trigger for a psychotic episode. If someone has already developed schizophrenia, smoking weed can make their symptoms worse and more difficult to manage with medications.
80% of people coming through the psych hospital, whatever, I don’t care if you smoke weed. Honestly, I wish people would smoke weed rather than use meth, K2, or a bunch of other drugs that fuck people up. But for that subset of people prone to psychotic episodes, the conversation centers around “some people can smoke weed and be fine, and you are not one of those people.”
The most common ages for men to develop first episode psychosis are 18-25, and while it’s dumb that this article focuses on teenagers, the risk in that age group is genuinely higher. This article really is dumb overall and does not explain any of this well
Hey I work in inpatient psych too and want to back you up. It’s totally a known observation that patients have been coming in younger and younger. And it’s very common to see a history of drug use of some kind (yeah usually for kids it’s weed, if not polysubstance).
Sad to see because once they start coming back to the hospital a few times, it’s like they’re in the system so to speak. Too many kids don’t break out of that cycle. I always discharge kids like, “I hope to never see you again. Don’t come back here” lol.
Just to add to your (excellent) comment; in the UK you can be prescribed medical marijuana but it has to be done by a consultant level doctor and a multi disciplinary trial. The most important disqualifying factor is any history of psychosis, if they see that on your medical records they will not write you a prescription.
So I would a assume there is some published medical literature they are following which states cannabis exacerbates the symptoms of psychosis.
The article, most of all, misses that it’s about CBD to THC ratio, not raw overall cannabinoid content. CBD is an antipsychotic and on the cusp of getting the stamp of approval for treating schizophrenia. Strains on the street, in the meantime, have been bred for THC at the expense of CBD because it’s THC which gives a head-high, makes consumers believe they got strong stuff.
The deeper question, overall, is why we live in a society which prompts people to take anxiolytics to cope.
I also work inpatient psych, doing admission evaluations. Anecdotally, it seems like my patients who report using synthetics and distillates get the worst psychotic symptoms while under the influence. I’m guessing the delta-8 edibles and vaporizers they’re buying legally from local shops probably contain no CBD at all.
I linked below a systematic review where many of the studies do find this to be the case.
I switched from drinking too much alcohol too often (wine, beer, etc) to occasionally dry vaping weed about 8 years ago. And from my mental and physical perspective it was a extreme shift to the better.
So I would even include alcohol in your list.
And I wouldn’t let my kids use weed as long as long as I am capable to control that aspect.
Alcohol can make you feel like shit and can do great damage if used too often, but meth and K2 can fuck someone’s brain up after even one use due to lack of quality control
i heard this too, some people have accounted thier friends went full schizo after getting baked, of couse they need to have underlying disease first.
I have friends who are now diagnosed schizophrenics, whose first major symptoms occurred while they were smoking weed. I have more friends whose schizophrenia appeared during or immediately after use of psychedelics. I tend to favor the belief that they had an underlying condition that was triggered, but I’m also slightly suspicious of the reasoning, which is too much like “they were already cracked and that’s why they broke at that time” which can be tautological.
Hopefully, someone will do a good study of people who show early or precursor symptoms of schizophrenia and look at their risk of getting full-blown symptoms versus the baseline population, with or without recreational drug use.
They cite one such study right there in the article, and there are others: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38775165/
This isn’t new information either, the experience I related above was a decade ago, and the impact of weed on people prone to psychotic disorders was already well known to the medical community at that time.
Help me out here. I read the symptoms of psychosis, and I’ve definitely experienced those a couple times but only when I get super baked. But when it wears off I’m normal again.
What am I missing? To me this sounds like there’s a link between bad driving and people that drink which is like “duh” to me.
Substance-insuced psychosis (psychotic symptoms while you’re intoxicated) is a different diagnosis than a psychotic episode. That psychotic symptoms are not due to substance intoxication is actually one of the criteria of a psychotic episode. What I’m talking about are people for whom weed can trigger a psychotic episode that doesn’t go away after the high wears off.
Wikipedia will be a much better source, but my understanding is that psychosis can be a temporary symptom, or it can be a permanent health condition that calls for medical treatment.
Psychoactive drugs like marijuana, mushrooms, LSD, etc. can trigger permanent psychotic health condition on people who have genetic traits predisposed to such conditions.
It’s like a genetic game of roulette whenever any of us smoke it-- it could be the beginning of a very difficult health condition to manage for the rest of our lives.
Why this guy and not the other guy who’s asymptomatic? Ah, a “genetic predisposition.”
That doesn’t seem like a scientific explanation, more a Just So Story, or at best, a hypothesis. It might be true, but where’s the evidence?
This systematic review lists 12 studies that almost all concluded THC has a causative relationship with schizophrenia.