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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.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21 2019, @11:36AM
Not only do I agree with you, but uh I thought it was known for years and year and years that strong THC, be it cultivated or chemical, could, in some people, cause or contribute to psychosis. in fact... one can nearly predict who, but at least at the time i thought this was common, only predict people who had various neurological issues that can be agitated to cause psychosis for a time.
often those same people are self medicating with marijuana, whether or not they undertand how much THC is in it.
i never read anything about CBDs causing psychosis. it could be that CBD sensitive people are less likely to suffer psychosis caused by marijuana as compared to THC sensitive people using marijuana of similar strength.
but reefer madness never really looked at why. just correlations--smoking roadside reefer means that your daughter ends up dating a homeless man of a different ethnic group who wants to sell her into slavery to pay for weights he will use to get stronger to better look menacing in his life of crime so he can afford to become a dealer. then your daughter ends up with mixed race babies that you are forced to take care of at your survivalist compound before the feds nab you because of your soverign belief system and lack of tax payments.