9 ms·

Adolescent cannabis use and later development of schizophrenia

43 points by DanBC 5y ago

kderbyma 5y ago
like most mental health issues. it's more than just chemicals...it's a learned pattern
- JimBlackwood 5y ago
  What do you mean by learned pattern?
pmdulaney 5y ago
Getting toxoplasmosis from a cat may trigger it too. But would these folks eventually become symptomatic anyway?
chownie 5y ago
Isn't there a very similar correlation for cigarettes? I wonder if this is people with schizophrenia unintentionally medicating themselves?
c0d3w4rr10r 5y ago
Been smoking weed for almost 10 years since I was 13. I don't understand if the more I smoke the more risk I have to contract it? At this point I should be hallucinating forever...
DanBC 5y ago
The full title is "Adolescent cannabis use and later development of schizophrenia: An updated systematic review of longitudinal studies" They're not saying cannabis use cause schizophrenia. Their conclusion is pretty clear "Both high- and low-frequency marijuana usage were associated with a significantly increased risk of schizophrenia. The frequency of use among high- and low-frequency users is similar in both, demonstrating statistically significant increased risk in developing schizophrenia."
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I feel schizophrenia is the wrong focus. To me that is having hallucinations and severe delusions. Don't know what the clinical indications are, using Twitter causes delusions as well. But from my experience a solid form of psychosis is not too uncommon. We had an enormous amount of users in school and some destroyed their lives with weed and ended in psychiatric care or didn't finish their degrees. Another problem is that weed is extremely potent today. Not the same stuff people smoked in the 60s anymore. Today people use extremely potent cultivated plants.
a0-prw 5y ago
So do latent schozophrenics disproportionately seek out cannabis or does cannabis cause schizophrenia? Also, did these people start with cannabis, or did they start with tobacco and alcohol ?
- JimBlackwood 5y ago
  The first is an interesting question, especially considering the potential length of the prodrome of some mental illnesses. Would be incredibly hard to test though, requires going back and forth with a time machine. Would be cool, though.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Right, the fact that there's significant correlation between schizophrenia and cannabis use is well known, but I not aware that there's any decent evidence for or against causation. Schizophrenics have generally higher rates of substance use/abuse so a higher rate of cannabis use is not not odd, per se.
  - stevedekorte 5y ago
    IIRC, there's also a very high correlation between schizophrenia and early substance abuse/overuse in general (such as high alcohol/caffeine use). Are these substances causal too?
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      It is, but also there is a thing called 'self-medication'*. As we know, global warming has a positive corellation with a decline of a pirate activity, but nobody yet discovered the cause. * as a person who at least read some things on it - it should be really described as 'attempts at s.m.' but here we are
    - schizohn 5y ago
      there is casual evidence that alcohol and caffeine increase hospitalisations for schizos. With marihuana its a harder riddle, what is a cause of another, I guess you can ask the same about other substances and origin
vmception 5y ago
I'm waiting for the day that these substances come in a bottle that has all the disclaimers from the controlled study in fine print at the bottom. "may accelerate schizophrenia if you have a history of that in your family" Then we can all move on and have it in the same substance of every much more dangerous OTC drug approved by the FDA.
pier25 5y ago
Does the study take into account different strains? Also hash vs pollen vs weed? I don't have access to the full text.
- schizohn 5y ago
  if someone has access please add to scihub
newbamboo 5y ago
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  >Bad parenting causes schizophrenia Do you have a study or textbook that discusses this? I'm interested in reading more
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    Quick google points to this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23800431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23800431/ It’s gotten “debunked” like so much else. Debunked means you aren’t allowed to talk about something. Bad parenting causes mental health problems, even though the factcheckers say otherwise.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      This is the old, and silly, nature vs nurture debate. Its debunked because we now know that its a combination of genetics and environment (such bad parenting) that can bring about issues Such that someone generally needs to have the genetic predisposition for <mental_health_issue> in order for the bad parenting to surface it. In some cases the genetic predisposition is stronger such that we need less (or more) environmental influence to being about <issue> While it's not entirely incorrect to say that <environmental_factor> (such as parenting or cannabis) can bring about <issue>, its also misleading because we don't get the full picture of cause and effect And as such we have people who go around on the internet claiming they know the ~one true cause~ because they read some mischaracterized study reported on by <media_institution> Never listen to media institutions about singular scientific studies, the reporting is almost always entirely trash
  - wwwwewwww 5y ago
    They do not. It's an old myth - the society used to blame schizophrenia on bad parents, especially mothers. This has no grounds in medical research.
joemazerino 5y ago
I would like to see a study such as this one comparing the different strains of Cannabis and their respective THC/CBD %. I can't fathom schizophrenia developing from smoking high CBD weed.
- halpert 5y ago
  You can’t fathom it? On what basis?
  - joemazerino 5y ago
    If you research "CBD affects on mental health" you'll probably come to the same conclusion. CBD attaches to the same CB-1 receptors as THC and can mitigate the anxiety inducing affects of high THC dosages.
  - honkycat 5y ago
    The reason this is surprising is because THC is the psychoactive ingredient in weed. CBD is mostly accepted as a milder agent, and has had medications containing it approved by the FDA, like EPIDIOLEX.
  - nick_ 5y ago
    Can't be fathomed.
bjourne 5y ago
Why is it so hard for many HN readers to consider that cannabis might cause schizophrenia? There are tons of studies demonstrating a correlation, so it's not impossible that there is a causation too.
- JimBlackwood 5y ago
  Thank you, I feel much the same. It feels a bit like accepting the evidence if it agrees with your preconceived notions and reject the evidence if it doesn’t. Is cannabis on the whole better than some other substances? Sure. Does that make it harmless and invalidate this paper? No.
  - sebastialonso 5y ago
    By evidence you mean the correlation? Yeah you're right, also we should all become pirates to fight climate change, since there's an (inverse) correlation between amount of pirates and temperature
- honkycat 5y ago
  1. Many years of anti-cannabis propaganda and the war on drugs, despite never really studying the effects of cannabis, makes people skeptical of research like this. 2. This article in no way states that cannabis usage causes schizophrenia. It says there is a correlation, and furthermore the fact that both low and high usage having the same effects. That actually harms the case that it DOES, since you would expect the odds of it causing issues would increase with amount ingested.
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    This sounds like anti-vaxx talking point, government messaging and scientific research on the subject are two different things.
    - honkycat 5y ago
      I'm not sure how this relates to anti-vaxx, which I am extremely anti-anti vaxx. I'm saying we cannot interpret this research study the way people want to. Correlation != causation, and the results on this seem murky in general, as outlined how amount consumed does not affect likelihood of symptoms. Comparing modern Covid research to this is... dishonest. We have a massive amount of data to parse and analyze with vaccine effectiveness etc. Meanwhile, this is a single meta-study that doesn't make any strong claims.
chuckSu 5y ago

43 points by DanBC 5y ago

kderbyma 5y ago

like most mental health issues. it's more than just chemicals...it's a learned pattern

JimBlackwood 5y ago
What do you mean by learned pattern?

pmdulaney 5y ago

Getting toxoplasmosis from a cat may trigger it too. But would these folks eventually become symptomatic anyway?

chownie 5y ago

Isn't there a very similar correlation for cigarettes? I wonder if this is people with schizophrenia unintentionally medicating themselves?

c0d3w4rr10r 5y ago

Been smoking weed for almost 10 years since I was 13. I don't understand if the more I smoke the more risk I have to contract it? At this point I should be hallucinating forever...

DanBC 5y ago

The full title is "Adolescent cannabis use and later development of schizophrenia: An updated systematic review of longitudinal studies" They're not saying cannabis use cause schizophrenia. Their conclusion is pretty clear "Both high- and low-frequency marijuana usage were associated with a significantly increased risk of schizophrenia. The frequency of use among high- and low-frequency users is similar in both, demonstrating statistically significant increased risk in developing schizophrenia."

raxxorrax 5y ago
I feel schizophrenia is the wrong focus. To me that is having hallucinations and severe delusions. Don't know what the clinical indications are, using Twitter causes delusions as well. But from my experience a solid form of psychosis is not too uncommon. We had an enormous amount of users in school and some destroyed their lives with weed and ended in psychiatric care or didn't finish their degrees. Another problem is that weed is extremely potent today. Not the same stuff people smoked in the 60s anymore. Today people use extremely potent cultivated plants.

a0-prw 5y ago

So do latent schozophrenics disproportionately seek out cannabis or does cannabis cause schizophrenia? Also, did these people start with cannabis, or did they start with tobacco and alcohol ?

JimBlackwood 5y ago
The first is an interesting question, especially considering the potential length of the prodrome of some mental illnesses. Would be incredibly hard to test though, requires going back and forth with a time machine. Would be cool, though.
meepmorp 5y ago
Right, the fact that there's significant correlation between schizophrenia and cannabis use is well known, but I not aware that there's any decent evidence for or against causation. Schizophrenics have generally higher rates of substance use/abuse so a higher rate of cannabis use is not not odd, per se.
- stevedekorte 5y ago
  IIRC, there's also a very high correlation between schizophrenia and early substance abuse/overuse in general (such as high alcohol/caffeine use). Are these substances causal too?
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    It is, but also there is a thing called 'self-medication'*. As we know, global warming has a positive corellation with a decline of a pirate activity, but nobody yet discovered the cause. * as a person who at least read some things on it - it should be really described as 'attempts at s.m.' but here we are
  - schizohn 5y ago
    there is casual evidence that alcohol and caffeine increase hospitalisations for schizos. With marihuana its a harder riddle, what is a cause of another, I guess you can ask the same about other substances and origin

vmception 5y ago

I'm waiting for the day that these substances come in a bottle that has all the disclaimers from the controlled study in fine print at the bottom. "may accelerate schizophrenia if you have a history of that in your family" Then we can all move on and have it in the same substance of every much more dangerous OTC drug approved by the FDA.

pier25 5y ago

Does the study take into account different strains? Also hash vs pollen vs weed? I don't have access to the full text.

schizohn 5y ago
if someone has access please add to scihub

newbamboo 5y ago

netizen-936824 5y ago
>Bad parenting causes schizophrenia Do you have a study or textbook that discusses this? I'm interested in reading more
- newbamboo 5y ago
  Quick google points to this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23800431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23800431/ It’s gotten “debunked” like so much else. Debunked means you aren’t allowed to talk about something. Bad parenting causes mental health problems, even though the factcheckers say otherwise.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    This is the old, and silly, nature vs nurture debate. Its debunked because we now know that its a combination of genetics and environment (such bad parenting) that can bring about issues Such that someone generally needs to have the genetic predisposition for <mental_health_issue> in order for the bad parenting to surface it. In some cases the genetic predisposition is stronger such that we need less (or more) environmental influence to being about <issue> While it's not entirely incorrect to say that <environmental_factor> (such as parenting or cannabis) can bring about <issue>, its also misleading because we don't get the full picture of cause and effect And as such we have people who go around on the internet claiming they know the ~one true cause~ because they read some mischaracterized study reported on by <media_institution> Never listen to media institutions about singular scientific studies, the reporting is almost always entirely trash
- wwwwewwww 5y ago
  They do not. It's an old myth - the society used to blame schizophrenia on bad parents, especially mothers. This has no grounds in medical research.

joemazerino 5y ago

I would like to see a study such as this one comparing the different strains of Cannabis and their respective THC/CBD %. I can't fathom schizophrenia developing from smoking high CBD weed.

halpert 5y ago
You can’t fathom it? On what basis?
- joemazerino 5y ago
  If you research "CBD affects on mental health" you'll probably come to the same conclusion. CBD attaches to the same CB-1 receptors as THC and can mitigate the anxiety inducing affects of high THC dosages.
- honkycat 5y ago
  The reason this is surprising is because THC is the psychoactive ingredient in weed. CBD is mostly accepted as a milder agent, and has had medications containing it approved by the FDA, like EPIDIOLEX.
- nick_ 5y ago
  Can't be fathomed.

bjourne 5y ago

Why is it so hard for many HN readers to consider that cannabis might cause schizophrenia? There are tons of studies demonstrating a correlation, so it's not impossible that there is a causation too.

JimBlackwood 5y ago
Thank you, I feel much the same. It feels a bit like accepting the evidence if it agrees with your preconceived notions and reject the evidence if it doesn’t. Is cannabis on the whole better than some other substances? Sure. Does that make it harmless and invalidate this paper? No.
- sebastialonso 5y ago
  By evidence you mean the correlation? Yeah you're right, also we should all become pirates to fight climate change, since there's an (inverse) correlation between amount of pirates and temperature
honkycat 5y ago
1. Many years of anti-cannabis propaganda and the war on drugs, despite never really studying the effects of cannabis, makes people skeptical of research like this. 2. This article in no way states that cannabis usage causes schizophrenia. It says there is a correlation, and furthermore the fact that both low and high usage having the same effects. That actually harms the case that it DOES, since you would expect the odds of it causing issues would increase with amount ingested.
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  This sounds like anti-vaxx talking point, government messaging and scientific research on the subject are two different things.
  - honkycat 5y ago
    I'm not sure how this relates to anti-vaxx, which I am extremely anti-anti vaxx. I'm saying we cannot interpret this research study the way people want to. Correlation != causation, and the results on this seem murky in general, as outlined how amount consumed does not affect likelihood of symptoms. Comparing modern Covid research to this is... dishonest. We have a massive amount of data to parse and analyze with vaccine effectiveness etc. Meanwhile, this is a single meta-study that doesn't make any strong claims.

chuckSu 5y ago