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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 20 2019, @04:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the blunt-message dept.

Daily Marijuana Use And Highly Potent Weed Linked To Psychosis

Weed use is taking off as more states move to legalize it. And with all the buzz over medical marijuana, it's starting to gain an aura of healthfulness. But there are some serious health risks associated with frequent use. One of the more troubling ones is the risk of having a psychotic episode.

Several past studies have found that more frequent use of pot is associated with a higher risk of psychosis, that is, when someone loses touch with reality. Now a new study published Tuesday [open, DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30048-3] [DX] in the The Lancet Psychiatry shows that consuming pot on a daily basis and especially using high potency cannabis increases the odds of having a psychotic episode later.

[...] The study also shows that three European cities — London, Paris and Amsterdam — where high potency weed is most commonly available actually have higher rates of new cases of psychosis than the other cities in the study. [...] The researchers identified 901 people aged 18 to 64 who were diagnosed with their first episode of psychosis between May 2010 and April 2015, at a mental health facility anywhere in 11 cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, other cities across Europe, and one site in Brazil.

The researchers then asked these individuals and a control group of 1,200-plus other healthy people about their habits, including their use of weed. "We asked people if they used cannabis, when did they start using it and what kind of cannabis," explains study author Marta Di Forti, a psychiatrist and clinician scientist at King's College London. People reported the names of weed strains they used, like skunk in the U.K., or the Dutch Nederwiet, which allowed the researchers to identify the THC content in each product through data gathered by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction and national data from the different countries.

The study found that those who used pot daily were three times more likely to have a psychotic episode compared to someone who never used the drug.

Related: Media Leaps to Questionable Conclusions from Study on the Effects of Marijuana on the Brain
Marijuana - Both Sides of the Story
Study Finds That Legalized Medical Cannabis Led to a Decline in Medicare Prescriptions
New Attorney General Claims Legal Weed Drives Violent Crime; Statistics be Damned
World Health Organization Clashes With DEA on CBD; CBD May be an Effective Treatment for Psychosis


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday March 20 2019, @07:56PM (3 children)

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 20 2019, @07:56PM (#817485) Journal

    “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.”
    — Ronald Reagan

    Unfortunately Marijuana research has a long history of finding politically desirable results. It will take a great deal more than a self reporting n=2138 study to get me to reconsider my position that it should be legalized.

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  • (Score: 2) by pipedwho on Wednesday March 20 2019, @10:54PM

    by pipedwho (2032) on Wednesday March 20 2019, @10:54PM (#817596)

    Don't worry in other news: Study Links Psychosis to Higher Rates of Daily High-THC Cannabis Use

    No matter much they think they controlled for it, there is always an element linking truthfully self reporting illegal drug use with the sort of person that takes a drug in the first place and ignores 'reality' (ie. in this case the harsh hand of the law or societal blow back).

    Especially considering:

    How they define and test for 'psychosis' is problematic. Half the people practicing yoga might be defined as 'psychotic' in some way within a range of certain criteria. The definition hinges on what 'reality' actually is. There is objective physical reality, and then there's subjective reality. The way different people view the world is clearly subjective when you look at the range of attitudes from positive to negative of people in otherwise identical situations. And 'psychosis' is by definition about they way people view the world.

    A consumerist society has been deluded into thinking owning/wanting more is a good thing. And that 'reality' is all about what you have and do, or what people have and do around you.

    Reality is actually about how you see the world. That doesn't negate the objective physical aspects of the world, but it does change your perceptions and reactions to the physical and social 'reality' surrounding you. And someone that is a regular consumer of certain psychotropic drugs will report this sort of thing. Harder drugs are the proverbial what goes up must come down, and the higher you go, the harder you fall. Whereas, something considered 'lighter' like THC may have some latent effects that last much longer - ie. the psychological 'rebound' (either positive or negative) hasn't dropped off completely even though the chemical has at the time the self-reporter is being tested for their so-called 'psychosis'.

    The basis of religious spirituality hinges on the introspection of 'what is truth/reality/unreality/etc'.

    Basically, reading into the details of this study shows it as politically motivated bunkum.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21 2019, @11:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21 2019, @11:39AM (#817869)

    dude where are the bikini women smoking pot? i want to help understand their psychosis better.

    hey mr reagan didn't you suffer brain damage during the last 6 years of your office? were you... on bikini island?

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 22 2019, @01:57PM

    by Bot (3902) on Friday March 22 2019, @01:57PM (#818395) Journal

    Maybe he was trying to keep up with Nixon?

    --
    Account abandoned.