12 ms·

New study makes link between use of potent cannabis and psychosis

113 points by m_eiman 8y ago

idlewords 8y ago
Don't many psychotic and schizophrenic people self-medicate with cannabis?
- n0mad01 8y ago
  that may be true. it may also be that too much cannabis is bad for you. as is too much sugar/food, sport, sitting, sleeping or ... anything.
  - puranjay 8y ago
    Somehow, if you suggest that smoking too much weed is bad for you, you're branded as some sort of puritan who isn't "getting with the times". I have never seen the kind of propaganda for any substance as I have for weed, with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects.
    - clb4mf 8y ago
      Yeah well. I've given up on that. If people want to self-inflict schizophrenia and psychosis on themselves who am I to stop them? It's good actually, because it's the young mostly, and we're out of jobs in my country... more jobs for me!
      - dmos62 8y ago
        It's sad that you've grown cynical, but it's nothing to brag about.
        clb4mf 8y ago
        Cynicism is nothing but a mechanism of self-defence against this evil and degenerate world; I encourage others to become cynics too before they go mad.
        saiya-jin 8y ago
        Still a rather sad story on your side, sorry to hear that. Don't want to stir up things more but maybe have a smoke and relax a bit, world is just fine ;) On a more serious note, cynicism is one way to fail to cope properly with reality, not something that gets you far and high in life. But hey, more jobs for us positive folks compared to bitter sad cynics!
        rusk 8y ago
        Cynicism is when this self-defence enters a degenerate state. This kind of negative outlook is an actual precursor to various kinds of psychosis widely studied with causal links established. You should check yourself.
        pennaMan 8y ago
        The world is evil and degenerate only for your personal definition of those words. Your worldview is the actual defense mechanism.
      - puranjay 8y ago
        I've seen some of my really bright friends get hooked on to it and become slow and lazy (anyone who says weed isn't psychologically addictive is lying), and it's just sad. Not to mention that it is almost always mixed in with a little tobacco which is a smell I can do without.
        RankingMember 8y ago
        That's their choice though. Are you really going to blame a plant for their becoming slow and lazy versus their decision to use it? Furthermore, I'd just point out that people who seem bright and happy on the outside can actually be suffering on the inside. It's possible they're happier and "brighter" now, just not in the same metric you were measuring them by. (Note: I don't have a horse in this race- I don't use marijuana because I don't like the effects, but I'll be the last person to act like it's some demon plant out to hurt capitalism's productivity.)
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      > with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects. Where do you live? Because growing up in the Netherlands I can say all the negative side-effects were very clearly explained to us in high school, without stigmatizing it. EDIT: it is a sincere question - obviously the Netherlands is in a kind of special position here. And my experience is from the late 90s, so who knows how things have changed since then too.
      - ddorian43 8y ago
        Do people know about drug induced psychosis there (including weed)? The lightest strain in a coffee-shop was pretty strong.
        vanderZwan 8y ago
        First, we should keep in mind that I can only speak anecdotally and by extension of that only for people with a higher education. But with that said, yes, we do. I even know someone who had it, and they quit using weed after that. It's kind of treated like the complicated thing that it is: genetics and existing mental and physical health are all risk factors, and as a teenager there is the still-developing brain to consider (just like with alcohol). You basically have to decide for yourself if all of that seems worth it.
      - mywittyname 8y ago
        In the US, marijuana is treated by supporters as some sort of magical panacea. This goes back to the root comment in this thread that people see this issue as very black and white.
    - dmos62 8y ago
      I am also interested in where you're from, because that really hasn't been my experience. Talking about baseless propaganda, don't forget that cannabis was deregulated for political reasons (in the U.S., then due to politics again, pretty much the whole world followed), not because of social or scientific ones. So your complaint about positive propaganda without discussion of harmful effects is very ironic.
      - mg794613 8y ago
        "In the US... Pretty much whole world followed" I wonder where you are from. If not from USA, you've been misinformed. If from USA, stop assuming you're the frontrunner of anything please.
        dmos62 8y ago
        I grew up in the Soviet Bloc. I didn't assume you were from U.S., not sure what gives that impression. I was talking about U.S., because it originated the current drug policy of the Western countries, roughly speaking.
    - peteretep 8y ago
      > Somehow, if you suggest that smoking too much weed is bad for you I've never seen this attitude in the wild. In fact, most heavy cannabis users I know express a desire to use less.
    - ada1981 8y ago
      I’d argue that anyone using the phrase “getting with the times” isn’t “getting with the times”.
  - Hattes 8y ago
    That is, in fact, why it is called "too much".
- eigenstuff 8y ago
  I'm schizotypal and I do. For me, weed is how I get my brain to shut up long enough for me to get in the groove when I'm working on my artwork. My symptoms are primarily issues with thought disorganization and it's often a struggle for me to sit down and get to work because my behavior is often very disorganized as well. I've been treated for ADHD since I was little, but I see my ADHD and schizotypy as two sides of the same coin. I don't smoke a lot, though. Just a hit every few hours, enough to give me a buzz. If I get too stoned to do anything, that defeats the purpose for me. Weed is a tool, weed is for work. If I want to just have fun, I'll drink. It does, however, contribute to psychotic episodes sometimes. But it's never the only contributing factor, it's usually in combination with too much isolation and/or not eating/sleeping properly. If I feel like my thoughts are starting to get more and more unorganized, I generally take that as a sign I need to get out of my apartment and go see my friends. My psychotic episodes are pretty benign, though, all that really happens is my thoughts get too rapid fire and disorganized for me to do anything but sit there in a stupor because I can't get it together enough to execute tasks. They're over when I wake up the next morning. (I will also say, they were pretty frightening before I realized what they were just because it's frightening to feel like you've lost control of your own brain like that.)
Daviey 8y ago
This study is published in the Lancet ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30048-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... ). My interpretation of their findings is that it doesn't provide safe assertions that Cannabis is the cause or the effect. Or in other words, does Cannabis usage create psychosis or do people with psychosis choose to use Cannabis? Similarly, there are unknowns with mental illness and tobacco smoking. Some think that those with mental illness are more likely to smoke as self-medication. http://ash.org.uk/download/smoking-and-mental-health-2/ http://ash.org.uk/download/smoking-and-mental-health-2/
- mirimir 8y ago
  It's very hard to draw conclusions about causality from these sorts of a posteriori studies. That is, as you say, does cannabis cause psychosis, or do people with psychosis self-medicate with cannabis? In order to get at that, you'd need to identify people with and without psychosis, and then follow them for many years. See who was more likely to use cannabis. And see whether using cannabis worsened psychosis. Not an easy thing.
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    No, it is impossible to draw conclusions about causality from such statistics only studies. The only way to establish causality is a randomized experimental intervention. The sort of study you describe can distinguish to some extent between "A causes B" and "B causes A" but can't tell them apart from "C causes A and B"
    - mirimir 8y ago
      I was going to make that point too, but the idea of randomly providing cannabis and placebo was too implausible.
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  Exactly. It just basically says, from the people who requested mental health care, more of them used cannabis than from the control group. Great. They also present higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, self harm, obesity, and various disabilities. Some may be cause, some consequence, some none of them. The title is correct, there is a link, but that link has not established causality of any kind. This is basically repeating uncountable studies saying the same thing. CBD, present in cannabis, is known to be antipsychotic, so the self-medication hypothesis is pretty strong. It's the same case as nicotine, schizophrenics have way higher rates of smoking, only because nicotine has a mild antipsychotic effect, not because smoking turns people crazy.
keiferski 8y ago
Western society has a serious issue with nuance. No, we should not throw people in jail and ruin their lives for smoking cannabis. Yes, cannabis has some health benefits for specific people in specific circumstances. No, that doesn't mean that cannabis is somehow "good for you" in the standard sense of the the term. This is why the "health benefits" arguments for legalization of drugs are generally a bad route to take. It would be far more fruitful to argue for legalization based on individual responsibility, personal choice, and related themes.
- eponeponepon 8y ago
  It's not just Western society, it's humans in general. The rest of the world might not get so wound up about narcotics as the West does, but there are plenty of other things that the mob makes unhelpful binary judgments about.
  - yk 8y ago
    As evidenced by sweeping generalizations about "the West" and "the Rest."
  - pennaMan 8y ago
    Don't a lot of Asian countries give out death penalties all the time for drug offences that would land you 5 years in jail in the West?
- dalbasal 8y ago
  In practical political terms (western and otherwise), "because freedom" is rarely a winning political tact. The legalization of cannabis was driven by cannabis being normalized. The news presenter and your daughter smoke grass. It was similar with gay right. Marriage rights, parental rights and such were driven first by "born this way," argueing that sexuality is unchangeable. Then, it came via normalisation as people came out and your friend end turned out to be gay. Eventually people concluded that homosexuality is fine, not a vice. "I think it's wrong, but freedom" only plays a role after the gay rights side wins. The dissenters can console themselves with it and put the issue to bed. That doesn't mean no one actually idealises freedom, but it rarely adds up to political change.
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
Talked to a psychiatrist some years ago, he said it would create the biggest health crisis in Germany if cannabis would be legalized, as there is a strong connection to schizophrenia for cannabis use. This link is only in a small portion of people, but when millions start to smoke it's going to be a very large issue Germany is not prepared to tackle.
- rbinv 8y ago
  Very doubtful. Where are the crises in legal states/countries?
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    Which country comes to your mind with high usage of cannabis and not a crisis? Looks like the Netherlands (which came to my mind) has rather low cannabis use. There also wouldn't be a statistic if people do not report to a doctor about 'hearing voices' for example. Also the Netherlands has shown the increase in schizophrenia https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/cannabis_report/en/index8.html https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/cannabis_re... For a deeper discussion see https://theconversation.com/if-cannabis-is-getting-stronger-why-arent-cases-of-schizophrenia-rising-93032 https://theconversation.com/if-cannabis-is-getting-stronger-...
    - rusk 8y ago
      Portugal decriminalised on specifically health grounds and it has been an unmitigated success. Also the low rates of smoking in NL undermines you because it directly demonstrates that legalisation doesnt lead to high uptake.
      - rbinv 8y ago
        Cannabis is not actually legal in the Netherlands (rather somewhat "tolerated"), but your point is still mostly valid as there's no real reason for people not to smoke if they want to.
clydethefrog 8y ago
Because of a history of psychosis in my family I decided to never take drugs in my life, not even cannabis while I life in a country where it's legal. I still got a heavy psychotic episode last year. Turns out the (heavy) drinking I participated in my student life was to blame. Research has shown that alcohol abuse causes an 8-fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in men and a 3 fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in women. [0] Not telling this to undermine the danger of cannabis for psychosis, but I wish I knew alcohol is unresponsible too I you have a high risk for psychosis. Sleeping enough, excercise, healthy diet and not numbing my stress with any substance has greatly helped as well. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis
- Tenoke 8y ago
  >Turns out the (heavy) drinking I participated in my student life was to blame. Did it happen during a night of heavy drinking? Because if not (and even then) I'm really not sure how you can pin it specifically on the alcohol.
  - clydethefrog 8y ago
    It happened a few days after a heavy weekend of drinking, but before that weekend it was months of getting drunk at least two times a week. The medical professionals explained that heavy use of alcohol screws with your neurotransmitters. Especially dopamine might play a big role in causing psychosis.
    - ZeroFries 8y ago
      The kindling effect is likely to blame. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative–hypnotic_withdrawal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative–hypnotic_...
- pennaMan 8y ago
  >I decided to never take drugs in my life >the (heavy) drinking I participated in You can clearly see how damaging the anti drug propaganda is when people don't even consider alcohol the hard drug that it is.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
y0y 8y ago
I know this is 100% anecdotal, but a good friend of mine who was a brilliant programmer discovered cannabis in his late 20s after moving to the bay area for a well earned high-paying gig. Prior, to my knowledge, he didn't even drink alcohol. After about a year of extremely high dosages, something in him snapped. He just lost his mind. He became convinced the internet was sentient and was speaking through him and all kinds of other nonsense. He's been under psychiatric supervision near his family home back on the east coast ever since. Again, it's anecdotal, and there could be a myriad of contributing factors - I know he had also begun drinking during that time period. But, until this happened, the idea of anyone going mad from cannabis was laughable to me. Now, I think about him sometimes when I'm visiting legal states and indulge myself in some quality edibles.
- ada1981 8y ago
  This might say more about moving to the Bay Area than Cannabis.
- aedron 8y ago
  Apologies for repeating myself from elsewhere in this thread, but the 'paranoid from the weed' effect is extremely well known among smokers. I feel the need to stress this, coming from someone who has had more experience with weed, both personally and from social circles, than probably most in this forum (even accounting for the California contingent). Some can deal with it easily and are unaffected, many are eventually a bit debilitated by it, and for some it triggers major problems. No need to sweep this under the rug.
  - fjabre 8y ago
    Yes but paranoid doesnt mean psychosis. Inexperienced users will tend to get paranoid more so. I believe people with psychosis are drawn to weed as they are to other substances. This study adds nothing new. It just demonstrates that people predisposed to psychosis are more likely to smoke weed. Anyone here could've told you that without a study being done. There is no cause and effect demonstrated in the paper. Notice they did not say smoking weed causes the psychosis even though they found a 'strong' link.
blastbeat 8y ago
Where I grew up, basically every youngster did drugs to escape the boredom of the 90s, as being trapped in their smallish german home towns. People did mostly cheap drugs like cannabis, binge drinking, magic mushrooms and crystal. Many of them eventually abandoned their habits, apparently without much damage. But I know quite a few who suffered from drug-induced problems like psychosis at some point in their life. Many of them are basically disabled now. Some of them live still with their parents, condemned to take medication for the rest of their life. All of them smoked weed, but only one of them smoked it exclusively. In the other cases where in addition drugs like crystal meth involved. My guess is, that for some people those drugs act like a tipping point, and bring underlying problems into full blossom. In my case, it was developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, as you don't know where or what your tipping point is, I'm strongly against taking those drugs. Even a one-time experiment with mushrooms can wreck your life.
- mg794613 8y ago
  Sorry, I agree with your full statement except the last 5 words. Did you hear this from someone who knows someone or do you have the science for that? Because as far as I know, all scientific research on psilocybin conclude the same. If you have experience where someone "became weird after first use" they were probably already weird but hiding it from you.
  - blastbeat 8y ago
    One could argue that one has to be weird to try drugs. I know one guy for sure how went straight to psychiatry right after first time mushroom usage. I don't know whether he was beforehand that weird, but he needed a long time to recover afterwards. And he did never drugs again afaik.
  - clydethefrog 8y ago
    Mushrooms are banned in the Netherlands because too many tourists died from incidents involving the drug. I figure many of those tourists used it for the first time.
    - 8y ago
notacoward 8y ago
I love how when the topic is climate change or vaccines or diet/nutrition everyone here is all "Science! Science!" but when the topic is adverse effects of vaping or smoking pot the preponderance of comments are "This science sucks!" Cherry-pick much?
- alphakappa 8y ago
  A single study does not make science. It’s a data point but it needs peer review, replication, and consensus after multiple independent studies. Climate change has scientific consensus from decades of study across the world.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    Funny how you picked that one example. Kind of proves my point, don't you think?
    - jsutton 8y ago
      Not really, the amount of quality studies done in relation to climate change dwarf those done around cannabis. Cannabis studies are still incredibly rare due to its legal situation.
cranberry_juice 8y ago
This is an old recycled study and far from being scientific. They assume causal relationship (yup!) and it's based on surveys. It basically looks like the authors had their pet theory and then build the paper around that to make a perfect headline maker to fuel government agenda. The simple fact that people with mental health issues self-medicate wouldn't stroke prohibitionists. Cannabis is so popular that person with issues sooner or later try it and find it helps them. This study is essentially the same as finding people taking paracetamol for headache and saying paracetamol causes headache. The stronger dose people take, the stronger headache they have. I think publishing such things should be illegal because it causes harm to public. The original study: http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/14TLP0454_Di%20Forti.pdf http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/14TLP0454...
- ada1981 8y ago
  They may look deeper and see that childhood trauma is a predictor for psychosis. And many people who are dealing with trauma symptoms find relief in cannabis.
macawfish 8y ago
Argh, this is an annoying, seemingly politically motivated report. The relationship between common cannabinoids and psychosis is already quite well understood. At large enough doses, THC is psychotic and CBD is antipsychotic (likely CBG too), so much so that CBD is used to treat positive schizotypal symptoms. E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51146763_Cannabis_with_high_cannabidiol_content_is_associated_with_fewer_psychotic_experiences https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51146763_Cannabis_w... and multiple studies I hate seeing science abused for political reasons, and this study is ripe for that. Why doesn't the study talk about the reason those high THC strains are so popular in the first place? That to me is the real tragedy. Ultra high THC strains are the "moonshine with too much head" of cannabis prohibition.
sarcasm_heals 8y ago
Cannabis is a psychedelic. Isn't the psychedelic experience a psychotic one? This study seems to confirm that.
dangerface 8y ago
Why does all the research on cannabis and psychosis always rely on correlation as if its causation? This isn't the first study to prove this correlation, and then let the media imply causation. If truth was their goal why keep doing the same broken study with pitiful sample sizes. 2000 samples is too small to a/b test a site, but good enough for a medical study? If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. Obviously you would need to take into account population and other proven causes of psychosis such as alcohol[2]. Similar studies have been done[3] with much larger sample sizes than these clowns. [1] https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-patterns-and-statistics-and-patterns/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-p... [2] https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-number-of-new-cases-of-alcoholic-psychosis/ https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-numb... [3] https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105 https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105
- DanBC 8y ago
  > If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. Also, cannabis doesn't increase risk for all types of psychosis. There are different types. Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.
  - dangerface 8y ago
    > You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. True but the countries I listed are first world countries where accurate diagnosis is common. The third reference I give is to a study on the prevalence of psychosis across 52 countries. It takes in to account that in developing countries diagnoses is uncommon and not accurate, any decent study would do this. The world health organisation study I linked used a sample size of 200,000 compared to the 2,000 sample size the cannabis study used. > Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis. Then the study should only target those types of psychosis. Yes other studies with larger sample sizes have proven this correlation before, but correlation in itself is meaningless. My argument was that if they really wanted the truth they could have done a study to show causation, but instead they showed correlation using quack sample sizes and then a bit of choice wording to scaremonger. The fact that people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis, doesn't mean cannabis will increase your risk of psychosis. It just means people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis.

113 points by m_eiman 8y ago

idlewords 8y ago

Don't many psychotic and schizophrenic people self-medicate with cannabis?

n0mad01 8y ago
that may be true. it may also be that too much cannabis is bad for you. as is too much sugar/food, sport, sitting, sleeping or ... anything.
- puranjay 8y ago
  Somehow, if you suggest that smoking too much weed is bad for you, you're branded as some sort of puritan who isn't "getting with the times". I have never seen the kind of propaganda for any substance as I have for weed, with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects.
  - clb4mf 8y ago
    Yeah well. I've given up on that. If people want to self-inflict schizophrenia and psychosis on themselves who am I to stop them? It's good actually, because it's the young mostly, and we're out of jobs in my country... more jobs for me!
    - dmos62 8y ago
      It's sad that you've grown cynical, but it's nothing to brag about.
      - clb4mf 8y ago
        Cynicism is nothing but a mechanism of self-defence against this evil and degenerate world; I encourage others to become cynics too before they go mad.
        saiya-jin 8y ago
        Still a rather sad story on your side, sorry to hear that. Don't want to stir up things more but maybe have a smoke and relax a bit, world is just fine ;) On a more serious note, cynicism is one way to fail to cope properly with reality, not something that gets you far and high in life. But hey, more jobs for us positive folks compared to bitter sad cynics!
        rusk 8y ago
        Cynicism is when this self-defence enters a degenerate state. This kind of negative outlook is an actual precursor to various kinds of psychosis widely studied with causal links established. You should check yourself.
        pennaMan 8y ago
        The world is evil and degenerate only for your personal definition of those words. Your worldview is the actual defense mechanism.
    - puranjay 8y ago
      I've seen some of my really bright friends get hooked on to it and become slow and lazy (anyone who says weed isn't psychologically addictive is lying), and it's just sad. Not to mention that it is almost always mixed in with a little tobacco which is a smell I can do without.
      - RankingMember 8y ago
        That's their choice though. Are you really going to blame a plant for their becoming slow and lazy versus their decision to use it? Furthermore, I'd just point out that people who seem bright and happy on the outside can actually be suffering on the inside. It's possible they're happier and "brighter" now, just not in the same metric you were measuring them by. (Note: I don't have a horse in this race- I don't use marijuana because I don't like the effects, but I'll be the last person to act like it's some demon plant out to hurt capitalism's productivity.)
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    > with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects. Where do you live? Because growing up in the Netherlands I can say all the negative side-effects were very clearly explained to us in high school, without stigmatizing it. EDIT: it is a sincere question - obviously the Netherlands is in a kind of special position here. And my experience is from the late 90s, so who knows how things have changed since then too.
    - ddorian43 8y ago
      Do people know about drug induced psychosis there (including weed)? The lightest strain in a coffee-shop was pretty strong.
      - vanderZwan 8y ago
        First, we should keep in mind that I can only speak anecdotally and by extension of that only for people with a higher education. But with that said, yes, we do. I even know someone who had it, and they quit using weed after that. It's kind of treated like the complicated thing that it is: genetics and existing mental and physical health are all risk factors, and as a teenager there is the still-developing brain to consider (just like with alcohol). You basically have to decide for yourself if all of that seems worth it.
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      In the US, marijuana is treated by supporters as some sort of magical panacea. This goes back to the root comment in this thread that people see this issue as very black and white.
  - dmos62 8y ago
    I am also interested in where you're from, because that really hasn't been my experience. Talking about baseless propaganda, don't forget that cannabis was deregulated for political reasons (in the U.S., then due to politics again, pretty much the whole world followed), not because of social or scientific ones. So your complaint about positive propaganda without discussion of harmful effects is very ironic.
    - mg794613 8y ago
      "In the US... Pretty much whole world followed" I wonder where you are from. If not from USA, you've been misinformed. If from USA, stop assuming you're the frontrunner of anything please.
      - dmos62 8y ago
        I grew up in the Soviet Bloc. I didn't assume you were from U.S., not sure what gives that impression. I was talking about U.S., because it originated the current drug policy of the Western countries, roughly speaking.
  - peteretep 8y ago
    > Somehow, if you suggest that smoking too much weed is bad for you I've never seen this attitude in the wild. In fact, most heavy cannabis users I know express a desire to use less.
  - ada1981 8y ago
    I’d argue that anyone using the phrase “getting with the times” isn’t “getting with the times”.
- Hattes 8y ago
  That is, in fact, why it is called "too much".
eigenstuff 8y ago
I'm schizotypal and I do. For me, weed is how I get my brain to shut up long enough for me to get in the groove when I'm working on my artwork. My symptoms are primarily issues with thought disorganization and it's often a struggle for me to sit down and get to work because my behavior is often very disorganized as well. I've been treated for ADHD since I was little, but I see my ADHD and schizotypy as two sides of the same coin. I don't smoke a lot, though. Just a hit every few hours, enough to give me a buzz. If I get too stoned to do anything, that defeats the purpose for me. Weed is a tool, weed is for work. If I want to just have fun, I'll drink. It does, however, contribute to psychotic episodes sometimes. But it's never the only contributing factor, it's usually in combination with too much isolation and/or not eating/sleeping properly. If I feel like my thoughts are starting to get more and more unorganized, I generally take that as a sign I need to get out of my apartment and go see my friends. My psychotic episodes are pretty benign, though, all that really happens is my thoughts get too rapid fire and disorganized for me to do anything but sit there in a stupor because I can't get it together enough to execute tasks. They're over when I wake up the next morning. (I will also say, they were pretty frightening before I realized what they were just because it's frightening to feel like you've lost control of your own brain like that.)

Daviey 8y ago

This study is published in the Lancet ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30048-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... ). My interpretation of their findings is that it doesn't provide safe assertions that Cannabis is the cause or the effect. Or in other words, does Cannabis usage create psychosis or do people with psychosis choose to use Cannabis? Similarly, there are unknowns with mental illness and tobacco smoking. Some think that those with mental illness are more likely to smoke as self-medication. http://ash.org.uk/download/smoking-and-mental-health-2/ http://ash.org.uk/download/smoking-and-mental-health-2/

mirimir 8y ago
It's very hard to draw conclusions about causality from these sorts of a posteriori studies. That is, as you say, does cannabis cause psychosis, or do people with psychosis self-medicate with cannabis? In order to get at that, you'd need to identify people with and without psychosis, and then follow them for many years. See who was more likely to use cannabis. And see whether using cannabis worsened psychosis. Not an easy thing.
- shkkmo 8y ago
  No, it is impossible to draw conclusions about causality from such statistics only studies. The only way to establish causality is a randomized experimental intervention. The sort of study you describe can distinguish to some extent between "A causes B" and "B causes A" but can't tell them apart from "C causes A and B"
  - mirimir 8y ago
    I was going to make that point too, but the idea of randomly providing cannabis and placebo was too implausible.
Uberphallus 8y ago
Exactly. It just basically says, from the people who requested mental health care, more of them used cannabis than from the control group. Great. They also present higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, self harm, obesity, and various disabilities. Some may be cause, some consequence, some none of them. The title is correct, there is a link, but that link has not established causality of any kind. This is basically repeating uncountable studies saying the same thing. CBD, present in cannabis, is known to be antipsychotic, so the self-medication hypothesis is pretty strong. It's the same case as nicotine, schizophrenics have way higher rates of smoking, only because nicotine has a mild antipsychotic effect, not because smoking turns people crazy.

keiferski 8y ago

Western society has a serious issue with nuance. No, we should not throw people in jail and ruin their lives for smoking cannabis. Yes, cannabis has some health benefits for specific people in specific circumstances. No, that doesn't mean that cannabis is somehow "good for you" in the standard sense of the the term. This is why the "health benefits" arguments for legalization of drugs are generally a bad route to take. It would be far more fruitful to argue for legalization based on individual responsibility, personal choice, and related themes.

eponeponepon 8y ago
It's not just Western society, it's humans in general. The rest of the world might not get so wound up about narcotics as the West does, but there are plenty of other things that the mob makes unhelpful binary judgments about.
- yk 8y ago
  As evidenced by sweeping generalizations about "the West" and "the Rest."
- pennaMan 8y ago
  Don't a lot of Asian countries give out death penalties all the time for drug offences that would land you 5 years in jail in the West?
dalbasal 8y ago
In practical political terms (western and otherwise), "because freedom" is rarely a winning political tact. The legalization of cannabis was driven by cannabis being normalized. The news presenter and your daughter smoke grass. It was similar with gay right. Marriage rights, parental rights and such were driven first by "born this way," argueing that sexuality is unchangeable. Then, it came via normalisation as people came out and your friend end turned out to be gay. Eventually people concluded that homosexuality is fine, not a vice. "I think it's wrong, but freedom" only plays a role after the gay rights side wins. The dissenters can console themselves with it and put the issue to bed. That doesn't mean no one actually idealises freedom, but it rarely adds up to political change.

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

Talked to a psychiatrist some years ago, he said it would create the biggest health crisis in Germany if cannabis would be legalized, as there is a strong connection to schizophrenia for cannabis use. This link is only in a small portion of people, but when millions start to smoke it's going to be a very large issue Germany is not prepared to tackle.

rbinv 8y ago
Very doubtful. Where are the crises in legal states/countries?
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  Which country comes to your mind with high usage of cannabis and not a crisis? Looks like the Netherlands (which came to my mind) has rather low cannabis use. There also wouldn't be a statistic if people do not report to a doctor about 'hearing voices' for example. Also the Netherlands has shown the increase in schizophrenia https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/cannabis_report/en/index8.html https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/cannabis_re... For a deeper discussion see https://theconversation.com/if-cannabis-is-getting-stronger-why-arent-cases-of-schizophrenia-rising-93032 https://theconversation.com/if-cannabis-is-getting-stronger-...
  - rusk 8y ago
    Portugal decriminalised on specifically health grounds and it has been an unmitigated success. Also the low rates of smoking in NL undermines you because it directly demonstrates that legalisation doesnt lead to high uptake.
    - rbinv 8y ago
      Cannabis is not actually legal in the Netherlands (rather somewhat "tolerated"), but your point is still mostly valid as there's no real reason for people not to smoke if they want to.

clydethefrog 8y ago

Because of a history of psychosis in my family I decided to never take drugs in my life, not even cannabis while I life in a country where it's legal. I still got a heavy psychotic episode last year. Turns out the (heavy) drinking I participated in my student life was to blame. Research has shown that alcohol abuse causes an 8-fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in men and a 3 fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in women. [0] Not telling this to undermine the danger of cannabis for psychosis, but I wish I knew alcohol is unresponsible too I you have a high risk for psychosis. Sleeping enough, excercise, healthy diet and not numbing my stress with any substance has greatly helped as well. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis

Tenoke 8y ago
>Turns out the (heavy) drinking I participated in my student life was to blame. Did it happen during a night of heavy drinking? Because if not (and even then) I'm really not sure how you can pin it specifically on the alcohol.
- clydethefrog 8y ago
  It happened a few days after a heavy weekend of drinking, but before that weekend it was months of getting drunk at least two times a week. The medical professionals explained that heavy use of alcohol screws with your neurotransmitters. Especially dopamine might play a big role in causing psychosis.
  - ZeroFries 8y ago
    The kindling effect is likely to blame. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative–hypnotic_withdrawal) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative–hypnotic_...
pennaMan 8y ago
>I decided to never take drugs in my life >the (heavy) drinking I participated in You can clearly see how damaging the anti drug propaganda is when people don't even consider alcohol the hard drug that it is.

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y0y 8y ago

I know this is 100% anecdotal, but a good friend of mine who was a brilliant programmer discovered cannabis in his late 20s after moving to the bay area for a well earned high-paying gig. Prior, to my knowledge, he didn't even drink alcohol. After about a year of extremely high dosages, something in him snapped. He just lost his mind. He became convinced the internet was sentient and was speaking through him and all kinds of other nonsense. He's been under psychiatric supervision near his family home back on the east coast ever since. Again, it's anecdotal, and there could be a myriad of contributing factors - I know he had also begun drinking during that time period. But, until this happened, the idea of anyone going mad from cannabis was laughable to me. Now, I think about him sometimes when I'm visiting legal states and indulge myself in some quality edibles.

ada1981 8y ago
This might say more about moving to the Bay Area than Cannabis.
aedron 8y ago
Apologies for repeating myself from elsewhere in this thread, but the 'paranoid from the weed' effect is extremely well known among smokers. I feel the need to stress this, coming from someone who has had more experience with weed, both personally and from social circles, than probably most in this forum (even accounting for the California contingent). Some can deal with it easily and are unaffected, many are eventually a bit debilitated by it, and for some it triggers major problems. No need to sweep this under the rug.
- fjabre 8y ago
  Yes but paranoid doesnt mean psychosis. Inexperienced users will tend to get paranoid more so. I believe people with psychosis are drawn to weed as they are to other substances. This study adds nothing new. It just demonstrates that people predisposed to psychosis are more likely to smoke weed. Anyone here could've told you that without a study being done. There is no cause and effect demonstrated in the paper. Notice they did not say smoking weed causes the psychosis even though they found a 'strong' link.

blastbeat 8y ago

Where I grew up, basically every youngster did drugs to escape the boredom of the 90s, as being trapped in their smallish german home towns. People did mostly cheap drugs like cannabis, binge drinking, magic mushrooms and crystal. Many of them eventually abandoned their habits, apparently without much damage. But I know quite a few who suffered from drug-induced problems like psychosis at some point in their life. Many of them are basically disabled now. Some of them live still with their parents, condemned to take medication for the rest of their life. All of them smoked weed, but only one of them smoked it exclusively. In the other cases where in addition drugs like crystal meth involved. My guess is, that for some people those drugs act like a tipping point, and bring underlying problems into full blossom. In my case, it was developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, as you don't know where or what your tipping point is, I'm strongly against taking those drugs. Even a one-time experiment with mushrooms can wreck your life.

mg794613 8y ago
Sorry, I agree with your full statement except the last 5 words. Did you hear this from someone who knows someone or do you have the science for that? Because as far as I know, all scientific research on psilocybin conclude the same. If you have experience where someone "became weird after first use" they were probably already weird but hiding it from you.
- blastbeat 8y ago
  One could argue that one has to be weird to try drugs. I know one guy for sure how went straight to psychiatry right after first time mushroom usage. I don't know whether he was beforehand that weird, but he needed a long time to recover afterwards. And he did never drugs again afaik.
- clydethefrog 8y ago
  Mushrooms are banned in the Netherlands because too many tourists died from incidents involving the drug. I figure many of those tourists used it for the first time.
  - 8y ago

notacoward 8y ago

I love how when the topic is climate change or vaccines or diet/nutrition everyone here is all "Science! Science!" but when the topic is adverse effects of vaping or smoking pot the preponderance of comments are "This science sucks!" Cherry-pick much?

alphakappa 8y ago
A single study does not make science. It’s a data point but it needs peer review, replication, and consensus after multiple independent studies. Climate change has scientific consensus from decades of study across the world.
- notacoward 8y ago
  Funny how you picked that one example. Kind of proves my point, don't you think?
  - jsutton 8y ago
    Not really, the amount of quality studies done in relation to climate change dwarf those done around cannabis. Cannabis studies are still incredibly rare due to its legal situation.

cranberry_juice 8y ago

This is an old recycled study and far from being scientific. They assume causal relationship (yup!) and it's based on surveys. It basically looks like the authors had their pet theory and then build the paper around that to make a perfect headline maker to fuel government agenda. The simple fact that people with mental health issues self-medicate wouldn't stroke prohibitionists. Cannabis is so popular that person with issues sooner or later try it and find it helps them. This study is essentially the same as finding people taking paracetamol for headache and saying paracetamol causes headache. The stronger dose people take, the stronger headache they have. I think publishing such things should be illegal because it causes harm to public. The original study: http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/14TLP0454_Di%20Forti.pdf http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/14TLP0454...

ada1981 8y ago
They may look deeper and see that childhood trauma is a predictor for psychosis. And many people who are dealing with trauma symptoms find relief in cannabis.

macawfish 8y ago

Argh, this is an annoying, seemingly politically motivated report. The relationship between common cannabinoids and psychosis is already quite well understood. At large enough doses, THC is psychotic and CBD is antipsychotic (likely CBG too), so much so that CBD is used to treat positive schizotypal symptoms. E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51146763_Cannabis_with_high_cannabidiol_content_is_associated_with_fewer_psychotic_experiences https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51146763_Cannabis_w... and multiple studies I hate seeing science abused for political reasons, and this study is ripe for that. Why doesn't the study talk about the reason those high THC strains are so popular in the first place? That to me is the real tragedy. Ultra high THC strains are the "moonshine with too much head" of cannabis prohibition.

sarcasm_heals 8y ago

Cannabis is a psychedelic. Isn't the psychedelic experience a psychotic one? This study seems to confirm that.

dangerface 8y ago

Why does all the research on cannabis and psychosis always rely on correlation as if its causation? This isn't the first study to prove this correlation, and then let the media imply causation. If truth was their goal why keep doing the same broken study with pitiful sample sizes. 2000 samples is too small to a/b test a site, but good enough for a medical study? If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. Obviously you would need to take into account population and other proven causes of psychosis such as alcohol[2]. Similar studies have been done[3] with much larger sample sizes than these clowns. [1] https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-patterns-and-statistics-and-patterns/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-p... [2] https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-number-of-new-cases-of-alcoholic-psychosis/ https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-numb... [3] https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105 https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105

DanBC 8y ago
> If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. Also, cannabis doesn't increase risk for all types of psychosis. There are different types. Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.
- dangerface 8y ago
  > You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. True but the countries I listed are first world countries where accurate diagnosis is common. The third reference I give is to a study on the prevalence of psychosis across 52 countries. It takes in to account that in developing countries diagnoses is uncommon and not accurate, any decent study would do this. The world health organisation study I linked used a sample size of 200,000 compared to the 2,000 sample size the cannabis study used. > Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis. Then the study should only target those types of psychosis. Yes other studies with larger sample sizes have proven this correlation before, but correlation in itself is meaningless. My argument was that if they really wanted the truth they could have done a study to show causation, but instead they showed correlation using quack sample sizes and then a bit of choice wording to scaremonger. The fact that people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis, doesn't mean cannabis will increase your risk of psychosis. It just means people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis.