21 ms·

Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds

313 points by shaburn 3y ago

shipscode 3y ago
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- dang 3y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
bjourne 3y ago
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- har_ry 3y ago
  Probobly never
- DaveExeter 3y ago
  Can we say nicotine has nothing to do with mental illness? Because the mentally ill really like their cigs!
  - quechimba 3y ago
    Tobacco can be a very good medicine. Smoking cigarettes is obviously harmful, but they can have a very good effect on mood.
    - quechimba 3y ago
      In the Peruvian Amazon, tobacco is considered to be a medicine. They use a stronger type of tobacco called "mapacho" which is pure, no additives. A regular brand cigarette contain about 10% additives (mainly sugars but also a lot of chemicals no one has ever heard of). And since mapacho is so strong you can get the effects without even inhaling the smoke, which is healthier for the lungs. Mapachos are used to clean out bad energies and keep bad spirits away.
  - mikhmha 3y ago
    Strangely enough the research shows that nicotine has a positive affect on treating schizophrenia symptoms.
  - whats_a_quasar 3y ago
    Here's a Scott Alexander post that looks at the link between nicotine and Schizophrenia. The research seems to indicate the nicotine reduces the incidence of schizophrenia, rather than smoking triggering schizophrenia. Smokers are less likely to develop schizophrenia, and mentally ill people probably end up smoking because it helps their symptoms https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoki...
- nebulousthree 3y ago
  Probably around the same time as "a little bit of wine is actually good for you".
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    You will note that this study is very specific with its claims : 21-30, male, (only?) addicted / high potency. Which is a surprise to me, as I thought that it was already "known" (while they say it's a first specifically for schizophrenia(!?)), and without these 3 specifics.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Idk, but I remember the bogus argument that legalizing weed will reduce how many people use it by removing the "forbidden fruit" appeal.
  - anoonmoose 3y ago
    Did you see the article on HN a few days ago about how legal marijuana purchases in the US fell from 2021 to 2022? There was a fair bit of debate around why exactly that was but I personally do think that what you mentioned is a part of it. edit: here's the comments section https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35788120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35788120
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Article says "In addition to the persisting illicit market and plummeting wholesale prices, extreme delays in local licensing have been cited as a cause for the decline." The article is also about revenue only, so I dunno. The hypothetical comparison like a decade ago was the number of users before legalization vs the number of users after. Every study I can find showed a sharp increase in usage in states that legalized it. If usage actually fell in '22, I doubt it came anywhere close to reversing the trend since legalization.
- welshwelsh 3y ago
  As soon as it's legalized. Cannabis might be bad for your health, but the most significant consequences of cannabis use are getting arrested and losing your job. As long as that's a risk, and as long as people use health concerns as an excuse to take away other people's freedom, we can't have an honest conversation about it.
  - BrianHenryIE 3y ago
    I saw a comedy clip recently: > Pot doesn't make me paranoid, pot being illegal makes me paranoid
    - tayo42 3y ago
      this joke isn't accurate though. its just a meme. getting way to high can you paranoid in other ways. which i guess is like schizophrenia. ime if your the type thats constantly scared of the police itll just turn into other paranoias. "are they talking about me" "why are they looking at me" etc..
yieldcrv 3y ago
I like the idea of capping THC potency (delta-9), what we have now isn't what we the general public aimed to legalize this is just competition keeping up with consumer demand the consequences should fall on the vendors and growers on a licensing perspective, just like alcohol or food vending
- rdruxn 3y ago
  I would counter that by pointing out that if your aim is to achieve a certain degree of bioavailability of TCH, you'd have to smoke a larger quantity of a lower-potency product, thus exposing yourself to more of the combustion by-products than necessary.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    I’m primarily an edibles consumer I wish marijuana use wasn’t assumed to be “smoking” by default most questionnaires and even dating apps are like do you smoke marijuana
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      More Americans smoke MJ now than cigarettes.
    - progmetaldev 3y ago
      I agree with you, but I think the bigger thing is that people do not understand that edibles affect people far differently than smoking does. Not just the effects, but the way the body metabolizes the substance. That information should really be more available, especially as cannabis legalization increases. Too many heavy smokers end up taking edibles and having a horrible time because they thought they needed a high amount of edibles to match their smoking habits.
  - saulpw 3y ago
    With high-potency strains you can't titrate effectively. "One puff" is a highly variable amount and you can't take 1.3 puffs. Not to mention that there's a minimum amount you have to put in a bowl, and if you don't smoke it, it gets stale and unpleasant. It's like having 85% ABV wine and pouring it into a wine glass and then what? Just take 1.3 sips and pour it back into the bottle?
amanaplanacanal 3y ago
Study is probably crap. An association between cannabis use and schizophrenia says nothing about which way the arrow of causation flows. It could very well be that cannabis use causes schizophrenia, or it could be that people feeling early signs of schizophrenia are more likely to use cannabis. There is no way to tell from this kind of study. Science is hard.
- michaericalribo 3y ago
  Science is hard, and that's why science rarely gives black-and-white answers. This study is not the one final word on the matter. But that doesn't mean it's not still useful. Science is done based on the evidence that is found, and this counts as some evidence. Does it answer every question? Of course not. Does it help improve our understanding of the occurrence of it? Yes. Correlation is not causation, but where there's smoke, there's often a fire—as these findings continue to be validated (and there have been other studies that find similar links), it becomes more and more relevant to understand why there is such a correlation—to find a causal mechanism, if it exists, or to confirm that it's just spurious correlation.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    > where there's smoke, there's often a fire Actually, as the replication crises shows, most smoke from papers either isn't real / doesn't point to a fire. So that maybe is a flawed line of reasoning. Correlation (if the research is done carefully to avoid intentional or unintentional p-hacking, and free of fraud) can point to maybe do a follow-up study (or do lots of different kinds of studies to do a good meta analysis that can try to establish causation) but the replication crisis indicates the good studies are swamped by the meaningless ones.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- dang 3y ago
mikhmha 3y ago
I really recommend people interested in Schizophrenia to read the book “Hidden Valley Road”. I saw it recommended in a HN comment previously. The book follows an American family who gave birth to 12 children, 6 of whom were later diagnosed with schizophrenia in their teens. It’s interesting because the book gives lots of insight into the historical to modern research on the condition. In the past psychologists thought schizophrenia was caused by the environment and/or bad childhood. But most of the research right now is pointing towards a genetic cause.
- 16bitvoid 3y ago
  I can't speak to its validity, but the way it was explained to me from a neuroscientist a few years ago is that the general hypothesis now is that some people have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and that predisposition sort of lies dormant until triggered. That would explain how both could be true: it could be genetic and triggered by environment/trauma.
  - peterfirefly 3y ago
    There are enough cases of identical twins where one twin gets it and the other doesn't that we are certain it can't just be genetic. We are also certain that genes matter. We even know roughly which genes and that many of the variants that increase the risk are de novo mutations. We don't know much more than that, though.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      It's difficult to believe that there are many sets of identical twins out there where one was abused and the other treated well or whatever. Were these identicals raised apart, or together? Are there enough of each to see a difference in rates between those raised together and apart? Whatever the triggers are, I can't help but think that they're subtle and unmemorable.
    - 3y ago
irsagent 3y ago
https://archive.is/9TCQZ https://archive.is/9TCQZ
glyphy177 3y ago
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freedude 3y ago
This isn't news. The link between schizophrenia and cannabis use was known in mental health world before it was ever made illegal. The legalization crowd wouldn't promote that. The news is the problem is increasing and a 3 in 10 chance of males becoming schizophrenic is a reason to avoid it. Now I wonder what the correlation of cannabis use to active shooter incidents is?
- mark_mc 3y ago
  The “3 in 10” in the article refers to the rate of developing cannabis use disorder, not schizophrenia.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  Betting that was supposed to read "made legal" but the point is clear, the link is very well known both to the medical world and culturally at large. The question of mass shootings and cannabis is interesting, it doesn't seem as likely that someone, even experiencing serious paranoid schizophrenia would go out into the world shooting (instead of barricading themselves), but then I haven't seen statistics for the use of amphetamines or opioids or alcohol by shooters either.
  - SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
    I'm guessing that this statistic wouldn't be very helpful or interesting. Even if the number is 100%, they all drink water and eat food too. A more interesting statistic would be rate of 1st-3rd degree murders committed on different drugs, and/or what percentage of cannabis users commit violent crimes in general.
    - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
      Sure, correlation is not causation at all, though notably 99.999% of water drinking food eaters don't commit mass murder. My knee-jerk assumption is that stoners are not as likely to rush around committing violent crimes as drunks or people on meth, but maybe that's over-optimistic.
- 3y ago
whats_a_quasar 3y ago
There's a really interesting line of research that suggests Schizophrenia is a spectrum, rather than a binary. Lots of people have personality traits that are similar to schizophrenics or have genetic risk factors for the condition. Some of those people develop the full disorder, and some don't. There's evidence that the reason for the split is that psychosis is itself damaging. Once someone has a psychotic episode, they are much likelier to have more. But the earlier a psychotic episode is interrupted, by anti-psychotics or therapy, the better outcomes are. So the implication is that many people have some degree of vulnerability to schizophrenia, and only those who have psychotic breaks develop the full condition. That's a possible causal explanation for a link between marijuana and schizophrenia. Someone who's got some vulnerability to psychosis, but wouldn't otherwise have developed schizophrenia, might be pushed over the edge by heavy drug use. This jives also with anecdotal reports of people who've had really terrible reactions to other psychedelics. There's a fascinating account by a psychologist who's also schizophrenic. He didn't have his first psychotic break until he was 33, far later than average. He talks about the personality traits of schizophrenics, how he noticed something was off and got early therapy, and how he credits that with delaying a psychotic break and improving his outcomes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632294/ Not a doctor or scientist, just regurgitating research I read for personal interest.
- wahern 3y ago
  > There's a really interesting line of research that suggests Schizophrenia is a spectrum, rather than a binary. I don't think it was ever considered binary. Rather, previously the variance was explained in terms of discrete subtypes and comorbidities. I guess now the field is moving toward a model that is more fluid and away from a rigid ontology, at least to the extent the ontology deigned to reflect distinct pathogeneses. I'm tempted to believe that there's an improved appreciation that progression isn't inevitable, and can be halted with management. But whatever assumptions the literature made on that score (and I'm not familiar with the literature), I'd bet most patient clinicians have always appreciated this. Understanding the why's and how's was always and still remains the problem.
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
sosodev 3y ago
I wish I could read the study but it is paywalled. The author of this article calls it "a new study of almost 7 million health records" but really it's a review of 20 other studies. So I wonder how they came up that number. Also, it doesn't make much sense to me to draw correlations between "high potency" cannabis and these outcomes. The potency of the cannabis shouldn't matter nearly as much as the amount of total THC consumed within a single session or whatever, right? I would think it's just harder to consume a ton of THC when the potency is lower. edit: The commenter lisasays has found and linked the actual study the article is based off of. Apparently it just wasn't linked in the article.
lisasays 3y ago
Original journal article (apparently not linked to in the Bloomberg piece): Association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia stronger in young males than in females (May 4 2023) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/association-between-cannabis-use-disorder-and-schizophrenia-stronger-in-young-males-than-in-females/E1F8F0E09C6541CB8529A326C3641A68 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici... Interestingly, the journal article doesn't bother to mention how cannabis use disorder (CUD) is defined; however, Bloomberg's description "frequent use despite negative consequences" is essentially that of the DSM, and so is presumably what they're using. That is - not based any particular rate of consumption (which is of course difficult to measure reliably, especially in prohibitionist countries like Denmark). But "continued use despite negative consequences". And that seems to be the crux of the matter: what the article is saying, basically, is that "people who continue to use despite negative consequences ... continue to suffer negative consequences." Which is rather different from: "Heavy use, by itself, brings these consequences."
- sosodev 3y ago
  Oh that's interesting. I thought the linked review study was what they were referencing. Why would they reference a study as the basis for the entire article without linking to it? .-. This really seems like bad journalism for the sake of clickbait.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    It feels like I see this a lot more recently and not just with science articles. Someone will write an entire article about a subject and never provide enough information for anyone to reach any informed opinion about it at all. It might be an article about a controversial statement someone made, but they'll never quote or link to what was actually said and instead only talk about the drama surrounding it. When the article is about the text of a proposed law, the law is rarely linked to and is often not even named. It feels like I see way more links to random people's tweets from news sources than links to actual sources. I guess commentary gets more clicks than content, but I the content is what actually matters and is usually what I'm interested in.
surfsvammel 3y ago
Interesting. My dad developed schizophrenia in his twenties and had been smoking a lot of marijuana. I have always wondered if the smoking triggers something in him. I will always wonder.
- elliekelly 3y ago
  I’m curious how we could ever reasonably parse cause and effect here? I think it’s possible smoking a lot of marijuana triggers something in certain people that causes schizophrenia but I also think it’s possible that people in the early stages of schizophrenia might seek out marijuana as a way of self-soothing. Or maybe it could even be a bit of both?
  - tysam_and 3y ago
    It could, though there is some work I believe on certain receptors which THC also happens to increase the activation of activating latent schizophrenia.
  - bjourne 3y ago
    FTA: "For example, in Denmark, the incidence of schizophrenia steadily increased from 2000 to 2012 (Kühl, Laursen, Thorup, & Nordentoft, Reference Kühl, Laursen, Thorup and Nordentoft2016), and the schizophrenia population attributable risk fraction (PARF) for CUD increased three- to fourfold over the past two decades, parallel to increases in THC concentration (Hjorthøj, Posselt, & Nordentoft, Reference Hjorthøj, Posselt and Nordentoft2021). The increased THC content may thus, along a potential increase in the prevalence of CUD, be a main driver of the population-level increase in PARF between CUD and schizophrenia." The explanation "increased THC content causes more schizophrenia" is clearly more plausible than "more schizophrenia causes increased THC content".
    - throwawayadvsec 3y ago
      https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DNK/denmark/healthcare-spending https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DNK/denmark/healthcare... In 2000 Denmark was spending 2496$ yearly per capita on healthcare, in 2012 it was 6004$(taking inflation into account: 2496$ in 2000 was 3,327.91$ in 2012) Maybe they just got better at detecting it? Your reasoning is akin to saying that it's likely that vaccines cause autism because of some overlapping charts, correlation is not causation.
iamnotsure 3y ago
Frequent mouse button clicks increase software hangs in desktop environments, study finds. (MJ is an ancient medicine, it can't and won't cause any disease; proper use is a remedy for many)
- graypegg 3y ago
  It can’t and won’t cause any disease? I’m on the side of MJ as medicine and for recreational use, but we really should pretend that because something is an ancient medicine that it’s somehow incapable of causing harm.
  - iamnotsure 3y ago
    Ingesting excessive amount of anything can cause harm. It's easier to die from water overconsumption or random allergic reaction than MJ. Spreading fear, misinformation or promoting prohibition is not humane. MJ is overall safer than alcohol.
    - orthecreedence 3y ago
      I think it's less useful to compare marijuana to something that can literally be classified as a poison (albeit a legal and socially acceptable one) and more useful to determine the boundaries of "when is it safe to use this substance?" We're coming out of the era of "marijuana bad. marijuana addictive. gateway drug. gives you cancer. makes you kill your parents." etc etc and moving into actually trying to figure out general guidelines for when it's good/bad. I don't think trying to determine these boundaries is fear or misinformation necessarily. I think it certainly can be weaponized in either direction, but for people looking to determine if it's right for them, this is useful information. And you're saying overconsumption is bad...can you define this? Just in this thread, there was someone who started their journey with it on a 15mg edible. That's insanely high for a beginner but maybe they read somewhere it was fine, or they had a psychonaut friend misguide them, or they just jumped right in with no frame of reference at all. The point is, if people are doing shit like that, it makes sense for there to be more of a general awareness of "here are the bad things that can happen."
tysam_and 3y ago
If anyone wants a technical reason, (as best as I understand), this could very well be a very straightforward consequence of THC sensitizing the D2 receptor, which so far at least has been shown to happen in some parts of the brain (https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201291 https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201291), as best as I understand. D2 is the primary receptor that many antipsychotics (especially the newer ones) target -- the first generation by completely blocking it, the third by partially agonizing it -- I.E., partially causing it to activate. However, third generation anitpsychotics activate it at a much lower value than dopamine itself would, so you potentially get fewer of the catastrophic side effects than you would from something like haloperidol or risperidone. However all three generations end up balancing out in the end to where they're actually not too terribly far apart in terms of side effects for the benefit provided, if I understand correctly, third generation antipsychotics like Abilify (aripiprazole) do hold an edge here. D2 is one of the the receptors used for psychotomimetic models of the brain -- stimulating it tends to bring forward both the positive and negative effects of schizophrenia if I remember correctly. Another psychotomimetic pathway is NMDA antagonism, which makes sense as glutamate is implicated in schizophrenia. What is interesting is that D2 agonists can help trigger latent schizophrenia, which exists genetically and often becomes obvious in the forefront by the late teens and early twenties. Marijuana use before the brain fully develops also has permanent effects on this brain in the same time range (not saying they're necessarily related). Schizophrenia does have some very clear structural causes -- for example, pyramidal neurons in some parts of the brain, if I remember correctly, are inverted to route information to lower layers in certain parts than higher ones. These are the neurons that collate and process many-to-one inputs->outputs. One of the interesting things about schizophrenia is that it results (if I recall correctly) in _lower_ brain entropy on the whole, which is not what one might expect with an information routing issue. This means that one might not reap the benefits of having excess information flow, since not only is there noise being added to the system, the confidence of the outputs of the system are increased. Many people who are schizophrenic tend to have a flat affect and are asocial, and will often have a tendency to safely pull away from society and keep to themselves, for example. They also have a lower tendency to become violent. This partially means, for example, that counterintuitively, that people who are schizophrenic, at least (and I would assume this applies as well to those who have schizophrenic tendencies) tend to have a lower violent crime rate as well. There are outliers, for example in homeless camps intercity, that can make schizophrenics seem more violent, though I would blame this on the human tendency of us valuing long tail events over uneventful ones for determining important information (something absolutely necessary for raw survival in a generally oftentimes cruel and unforgiving world -- society or no. It is unfortunately a useful bias to have). All in all, this is a very interesting (if very tough, hard, and sad at times, to be quite frank!) topic, and does bear much of our interest and empathy. Please be sure to ground yourself in the science of it all, and I encourage you to keep pursuing knowledge about this subject matter. There is not necessarily much new under the sun, and a lot of these studies are not anything surprising, shocking, or novel, but instead confirmation of certain hypotheses or theories that have been running in the community for quite a while. Of course, we don't know for sure if this what this is -- this is one person who is not in the medical community's take on it (albeit with a fair bit of personal interest and investment in the topic), and someone who is a skilled researcher particular to the subject matter area might give you a different and/or better view on it. Source for interest in this case is that I am very much interested in psychopharmacology, and it's been an, er, rather involved hobby of mine for a while in terms of the amount of papers and such that I've read on the matter (I also took a graduate class in it for funsies online through the Harvard extension school. I can recommend that experience -- it's not that hard to get into, and you get some _quality_ course material, guest speakers from around the field (!!!!), and lectures). Feel free to let me know if you have any questions! Much love!!!! <3 :)))) :'D <3
shehrosemian 3y ago
A socio-positivistic statistical study that involves a molecular substance-human interaction is already epistemically imprecise and type-theoretically invalid. You would want a molecular-human statistical study, even for just one person to obtain more precise objective data. Throw the experimental design out and try a responsively appropriate approach for the subject matter, I would advise.
firatsarlar 3y ago
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- firatsarlar 3y ago
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NickC25 3y ago
I find that weed's effects just heighten a person's extremes. I become slow, almost indecisively slow on the stuff. It does calm my ADHD slightly, but it also helps me sleep. I also only use the stuff at night, generally an hour or two before bed and after all my needs are taken care of. It turns my neurotic brother into a short-tempered asshole. He uses the stuff several times daily. Guess people react differently to a whole variety of substances. Who knew?
- y-curious 3y ago
  Have you looked into ADHD and cannabis? The TLDR from my reading is that it actually improves your focus and lessens symptoms BUT those improvements also come with the downside of getting stoned.
  - agentwiggles 3y ago
    This is not my experience. I find that weed makes my mind wander randomly down all sorts of tracks. Sometimes this can be fun, interesting, and insightful, but it's certainly not a state that helps my already very poor focus.
    - NickC25 3y ago
      Mine too. It can be fun, but seldom is. If I'm already focused on a task, I can get a burst of creativity, but sometimes that just opens the rabbit hole and I inevitably fall in. Example: gaming while stoned. I might get one game of online chess while high that represents my absolute peak level - I've beaten up to 2300+ rated players...the only problem is I'll turn around and loose to someone 400-500 points lower than me in the very next game. While high, my mind wanders like no other.
kitanata 3y ago
You have these cells in your brain called Microglia. They are responsible for cleaning up neurons and plaques and other weird proteins. These Microglia are activated by the firing neurons which release 2-AG and AEA (Anadamide). AEA binds to the CB1 receptor in these Microglia. 2-AG binds to CB2. THC binds to CB1. CBD binds to CB2. Autistic adults have significantly low blood serum levels of AEA. Autistic people’s neurons prune slower. Schizophrenic people’s neurons prune faster. It seems the ECS system is the principal driving mechanism behind both conditions. We need a lot more research in this area, but it could be THC has a positive neurological affect on Autistic people whereas finding a blocker for AEA binding on Microglia may result in a positive neurological affect on Schizophrenic people. The next few years will be especially interesting.
- wowlookatme 3y ago
  As somebody with autism and a history of cannabis abuse I'm curious to read more about this. Any pointers on where I could start?
  - kitanata 3y ago
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34744824/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34744824/ This is a review not a study. It is designed to give you a broad view of current areas of active research. It does not validate any of the research it discusses. It just says “this is what is out there”. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  Empirically (based on my own observations) I've known for decades that weed induced episodes in schizophrenic people. I didn't know it was helpful for autistic people. On the same (personal observation) basis, I'd say that schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis. I have no idea why; perhaps because they're often very marginalized and precarious.
  - mikrl 3y ago
    One of my stoner friends in high school 10-15 years ago was dating an autistic girl, and he mentioned that it had some medical benefit for them. Obviously it was ‘pothead science’ without a mechanism etc but it has been a thing anecdotally for at least as long as the medical push has existed.
xupybd 3y ago
My father was a mental health social worker. He worked with youths, mainly teens. In his experience the vast majority of teens that ended up in his hospital had some drug fueled episode that led to their mental health crisis. He told me that he didn't think the drugs caused the mental illness but we're often the trigger. That is these kids already had a mental illness that had not started to present symptoms until it was triggered. My father was not opposed to drug use. He had a history of recreational drug use and many of his life long friends are heavy marijuana users. So I don't think this observation came from an anti drug bias.
- sjc02060 3y ago
  Is that to assume these kids would've got mentally ill anyway, just later down the line?
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    I think that's a safe assumption. Things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder tend to get worse with time.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    That might be what parent is assuming. My view is that (a) they're already mentally ill; and (b) the psychedelic can trigger severe episodes that wouldn't otherwise have happened. I don't know how cannabis works for people with bipolar. Laing used to interpret all psychotic disorders as the same thing. I'm not sure that's right. It seems to me that the different types of bipolar are suffficiently distinct that it's unsafe to declare them variants of the same condition. And I'm pretty sure they're not on a continuum with schizophrenia. I don't know; I'm neither a doctor nor a therapist. It's just that a surprising proportion of the people I've known well have turned out to have some kind of psychotic disorder. Perhaps they're attracted to me, or me to them. Either way, perhaps I could be used as a kind of diagnostic sign.
  - xupybd 3y ago
    I suspect so. My Father was only observing what he saw. He wasn't researching the cause. The key take away for me was that he was working with young people. I suspect these people may have ended up in mental health care but much later in life. If this were true you'd expect less of the later in life diagnoses to be drug related. I have no data on that.
hulitu 3y ago
> Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds So it is not a problem unless i already have schizophrenia.
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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dahwolf 3y ago
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- flatiron 3y ago
  I believe the question has always been causation or correlation. Do people with schizophrenia use marijuana to self medicate or does marijuana cause schizophrenia. Apparently from this study it’s the later.
- styren 3y ago
  Can you define "heavy users"?
motohagiography 3y ago
I would wonder what schizophrenia means, as I often joke that some of the insanely potent cannabis for sale at two-shops-on-every-block in Canada is basically recreational schizophrenia. It absolutely affects the quality of peoples reasoning and creates hallucinatory associations and beliefs, if only temporarily. I also feel like the only person who apprecaites how funny it is that a government that legalized smoking unlimited amounts of pot had to pass consequent legislation to fight the propagation of conspiracy theories. The mental health aspect of this is very serious though. I've seen some real burnout and moreso, social withdrawal. In Canada, we're sounding this all out in real time, and some days the drugs seem like palliative care for an old culture and society whose end is being hastened.
pnathan 3y ago
This confirms the widespread anecdotes online, where so and so's friend smoked way too much and had a mental break(more rarely, the sufferer speaks for themselves). I'm glad to see research on this, but I hope it doesn't spawn another wave of reflexive & unthinking anti-drug legislation.
1970-01-01 3y ago
This is news?? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ First sentence: Cannabis is a known risk factor for schizophrenia. There's more, but read it for yourself.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  Science is not a one off definitive answer to things. We need to study things, restudy things and replicate results. So yes, a repeat study on something studied before can very much be news, if it replicates the previous results then it's often even good news.
Yorch 3y ago
Studies have proven that decades ago.
firatsarlar 3y ago
That's the funny and uninhibited stance on the applied side of science. The subject is discussed only as matter, abstracting it from values such as culture, life and history, and its effects on pure matter and the human body - again a perception of matter. There is no meaning, culture or context in it. It's just ridiculous. The sad thing is, when man has countless problems, serious unresolved problems - let's just say Cancer - why this kind of research? The basic logic is control, demeaning and desertification. The human-thing relationship cannot be explained only at the atomic level. The coffee you drink with a person changes according to the person and gains a place in your world of meaning, you may not forget what you talked for years. On a substance level, yes, a panic attack as you drink - presumably - some kind of excitement? The reaction and meaning of a machine-like body and brain to the substance it consumes just to do more work?! I could not adopt the limitless and meaningless scientific approach, I could not find an enlightening side?! Is science real?
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
I used to smoke in high school and college and it was great, no negative effects. Then I took maybe a half year break at 21. When I smoked again I would get super anxious and paranoid. To the point where I just needed to go lay in bed and wait it out. I thought I smoked too much or it was stronger than what I was used to. Took it a bit easier the next time. Same thing. I stuck to methylone, ketamine, methoxetamine, 2C-E, and a little LSD after that. I was fine with all of those. Then one night I'm hanging out with some people I barely know, I had a little methylone and ketamine in me, took a puff or 2 of weed. Full blown psychosis for the next 12+ hours. I was convinced they were cops and I locked myself in the bathroom all night. I didn't touch weed or much of anything for a couple years after that. Fast forward to 2013, I'm living in Tacoma, weed was just legalized, I take a hit and I'm good, take another one and full blown anxiety attack and paranoia. Ok maybe edibles are ok, so I ate some edibles a few months later, not so bad, pretty chill. Over the years since then I've tried smoking, vaping, and eating THC and it usually leads to paranoia and anxiety. Not always though, it's like I'm just really sensitive to it and it's really easy to overdo it. I've found that the newer edibles that are from hemp extract and are only like 5mg THC are excellent. I drink a seltzer and I'm just chill and having a good time. 2 seltzers and I can feel the anxiety start to come on, but I'm still good. This whole time I've just been trying to chase that feeling it used to give me in high school.
- agentwiggles 3y ago
  I spent several years in my early 20s as a daily smoker, but at some point in the last few years, I crossed some sort of line, and I seemingly can't smoke at all anymore without winding up anxious as hell. Ultimately this led to me just totally giving the stuff up, which isn't the worst outcome. I still miss certain aspects of it, but after consistently having bad experiences for a while, it seems that I'm just better off without it. I don't really drink either, so my vices now are limited to vaping and a very occasional small dose of mushrooms. /shrug, worse problems to have I guess.
Maursault 3y ago
> Heavy marijuana Ordinary marijuana is measured fractions of an ounce or in grams. A half gram in a bowl, which is a lot, contains many doses. I've never heard of this heavy marijuana, but it should be easy enough to identify and avoid.
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spicyusername 3y ago
Can we please stop making marijuana so strong. I already cut my marijuana with 50% CBD, and that's still plenty strong that I only need a single hit to be plenty high. I can't for the life of me understand why there's a race to the highest imaginable THC percentage, when it so clearly has an adverse effect on the experience.
- agentwiggles 3y ago
  100% agree. I think that the industry as a whole really optimized for the wrong thing for a very long time. It seems like in legal states, there's been a move towards more balanced strains (or at least, those have a niche in the market), but it seems like everyone was going for 30% THC by weight, and as little CBD as possible. The "mids" I used to smoke back in my teenage years gave a better (read: more fun and relaxing) high than most of the "dank" weed I've smoked as an adult.
- alephu5 3y ago
  I imagine the people paying the most money have a high tolerance.
electrondood 3y ago
n=1, in high school I was smoking a lot of weed, and started having what I discovered years later are called "ideas of reference," where you start getting the sense that the people around you are talking about you, but secretly. At face value, there's nothing you can point to as evidence of this, because it all appears to be normal conversation, but there's a secret meaning that only you can hear. You're basically projecting your unconscious onto random stimuli, like the conversations of bystanders. If you start believing that this is reality, then it becomes "delusions of reference." I later learned this can be related to low folate or B12, and suspect that was also a cause. Interestingly enough, I'm also fairly confident I'm autistic.
- rhinoceraptor 3y ago
  You may have an MTHFR polymorphism that leads to low folate/B12, those SNPs are correlated with autism, schizophrenia, among other things. I have the homozygous C677T SNP and recently started taking methyl folate and methylated B12 and noticed I get much better sleep and less brain fog.
  - electrondood 3y ago
    I thought the same but checked all the known SNPs for my genome and did not find any. Maybe I should check again.
lionelholt 3y ago
Bloomberg's headline very different vs the actual conclusion of the study: "Young males might be particularly susceptible to the effects of cannabis on schizophrenia. At a population level, assuming causality, one-fifth of cases of schizophrenia among young males might be prevented by averting CUD. Results highlight the importance of early detection and treatment of CUD and policy decisions regarding cannabis use and access, particularly for 16–25-year-olds."
CharlesW 3y ago
This is purely anecdotal, but it reminds me of the recent mental health revelation by Kevin Smith. He was baked all day, every day for 15 years, but quit cold turkey after checking himself into a facility for a month. I thought his discussion about it was interesting. Clearly there was other stuff going on, but he apparently felt his cannabis use was enough of a contributing factor that he decided to stop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvc7Ny4iUk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvc7Ny4iUk
- wktra 3y ago
  As a former die-hard KS fan, this recent People Magazine spotlight/feature/confessional pretty much helped me realize he's a master carny-barker.
m463 3y ago
I thought that marijuana interfered with sleep, and you just didn't get your proper REM sleep. So if you continue it - REM sleep deprivation has side effects. and if you stop it - your body will try to make up for lost time (REM) and make you hallucinate a lot. maybe all of this is related to schizophrenia
mandmandam 3y ago
PSA: With regard to psychosis, there's a big difference between high THC cannabis and high CBD cannabis. Huge. If you are one of the many who comment with confidence on this issue, but are not aware of the distinction, please consider looking into it.
cushpush 3y ago
I think also combustion of materials leads to more carcinogen intake. Vaporization of material is much safer, and I would like to see studies on this.
ehPReth 3y ago
While we're on the topic; is there like a marijuana that doesn't give you the munchies?
lakomen 3y ago
Old news. I blame the highly potent breeds since NLX. The THC concentration is so high that it's too much. Nowadays weeds are even more potent than NLX. Of course our brains can't handle that. IMHO those kinds of super weeds are harmful and should be banned. I'm speaking from my own experience and have seen many friends on stationary observation.
Takennickname 3y ago
100% don't doubt it for a second

313 points by shaburn 3y ago

shipscode 3y ago

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dang 3y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

bjourne 3y ago

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har_ry 3y ago
Probobly never
DaveExeter 3y ago
Can we say nicotine has nothing to do with mental illness? Because the mentally ill really like their cigs!
- quechimba 3y ago
  Tobacco can be a very good medicine. Smoking cigarettes is obviously harmful, but they can have a very good effect on mood.
  - quechimba 3y ago
    In the Peruvian Amazon, tobacco is considered to be a medicine. They use a stronger type of tobacco called "mapacho" which is pure, no additives. A regular brand cigarette contain about 10% additives (mainly sugars but also a lot of chemicals no one has ever heard of). And since mapacho is so strong you can get the effects without even inhaling the smoke, which is healthier for the lungs. Mapachos are used to clean out bad energies and keep bad spirits away.
- mikhmha 3y ago
  Strangely enough the research shows that nicotine has a positive affect on treating schizophrenia symptoms.
- whats_a_quasar 3y ago
  Here's a Scott Alexander post that looks at the link between nicotine and Schizophrenia. The research seems to indicate the nicotine reduces the incidence of schizophrenia, rather than smoking triggering schizophrenia. Smokers are less likely to develop schizophrenia, and mentally ill people probably end up smoking because it helps their symptoms https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoki...
nebulousthree 3y ago
Probably around the same time as "a little bit of wine is actually good for you".
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  You will note that this study is very specific with its claims : 21-30, male, (only?) addicted / high potency. Which is a surprise to me, as I thought that it was already "known" (while they say it's a first specifically for schizophrenia(!?)), and without these 3 specifics.
hot_gril 3y ago
Idk, but I remember the bogus argument that legalizing weed will reduce how many people use it by removing the "forbidden fruit" appeal.
- anoonmoose 3y ago
  Did you see the article on HN a few days ago about how legal marijuana purchases in the US fell from 2021 to 2022? There was a fair bit of debate around why exactly that was but I personally do think that what you mentioned is a part of it. edit: here's the comments section https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35788120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35788120
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Article says "In addition to the persisting illicit market and plummeting wholesale prices, extreme delays in local licensing have been cited as a cause for the decline." The article is also about revenue only, so I dunno. The hypothetical comparison like a decade ago was the number of users before legalization vs the number of users after. Every study I can find showed a sharp increase in usage in states that legalized it. If usage actually fell in '22, I doubt it came anywhere close to reversing the trend since legalization.
welshwelsh 3y ago
As soon as it's legalized. Cannabis might be bad for your health, but the most significant consequences of cannabis use are getting arrested and losing your job. As long as that's a risk, and as long as people use health concerns as an excuse to take away other people's freedom, we can't have an honest conversation about it.
- BrianHenryIE 3y ago
  I saw a comedy clip recently: > Pot doesn't make me paranoid, pot being illegal makes me paranoid
  - tayo42 3y ago
    this joke isn't accurate though. its just a meme. getting way to high can you paranoid in other ways. which i guess is like schizophrenia. ime if your the type thats constantly scared of the police itll just turn into other paranoias. "are they talking about me" "why are they looking at me" etc..

yieldcrv 3y ago

I like the idea of capping THC potency (delta-9), what we have now isn't what we the general public aimed to legalize this is just competition keeping up with consumer demand the consequences should fall on the vendors and growers on a licensing perspective, just like alcohol or food vending

rdruxn 3y ago
I would counter that by pointing out that if your aim is to achieve a certain degree of bioavailability of TCH, you'd have to smoke a larger quantity of a lower-potency product, thus exposing yourself to more of the combustion by-products than necessary.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  I’m primarily an edibles consumer I wish marijuana use wasn’t assumed to be “smoking” by default most questionnaires and even dating apps are like do you smoke marijuana
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    More Americans smoke MJ now than cigarettes.
  - progmetaldev 3y ago
    I agree with you, but I think the bigger thing is that people do not understand that edibles affect people far differently than smoking does. Not just the effects, but the way the body metabolizes the substance. That information should really be more available, especially as cannabis legalization increases. Too many heavy smokers end up taking edibles and having a horrible time because they thought they needed a high amount of edibles to match their smoking habits.
- saulpw 3y ago
  With high-potency strains you can't titrate effectively. "One puff" is a highly variable amount and you can't take 1.3 puffs. Not to mention that there's a minimum amount you have to put in a bowl, and if you don't smoke it, it gets stale and unpleasant. It's like having 85% ABV wine and pouring it into a wine glass and then what? Just take 1.3 sips and pour it back into the bottle?

amanaplanacanal 3y ago

Study is probably crap. An association between cannabis use and schizophrenia says nothing about which way the arrow of causation flows. It could very well be that cannabis use causes schizophrenia, or it could be that people feeling early signs of schizophrenia are more likely to use cannabis. There is no way to tell from this kind of study. Science is hard.

michaericalribo 3y ago
Science is hard, and that's why science rarely gives black-and-white answers. This study is not the one final word on the matter. But that doesn't mean it's not still useful. Science is done based on the evidence that is found, and this counts as some evidence. Does it answer every question? Of course not. Does it help improve our understanding of the occurrence of it? Yes. Correlation is not causation, but where there's smoke, there's often a fire—as these findings continue to be validated (and there have been other studies that find similar links), it becomes more and more relevant to understand why there is such a correlation—to find a causal mechanism, if it exists, or to confirm that it's just spurious correlation.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  > where there's smoke, there's often a fire Actually, as the replication crises shows, most smoke from papers either isn't real / doesn't point to a fire. So that maybe is a flawed line of reasoning. Correlation (if the research is done carefully to avoid intentional or unintentional p-hacking, and free of fraud) can point to maybe do a follow-up study (or do lots of different kinds of studies to do a good meta analysis that can try to establish causation) but the replication crisis indicates the good studies are swamped by the meaningless ones.
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dang 3y ago

mikhmha 3y ago

I really recommend people interested in Schizophrenia to read the book “Hidden Valley Road”. I saw it recommended in a HN comment previously. The book follows an American family who gave birth to 12 children, 6 of whom were later diagnosed with schizophrenia in their teens. It’s interesting because the book gives lots of insight into the historical to modern research on the condition. In the past psychologists thought schizophrenia was caused by the environment and/or bad childhood. But most of the research right now is pointing towards a genetic cause.

16bitvoid 3y ago
I can't speak to its validity, but the way it was explained to me from a neuroscientist a few years ago is that the general hypothesis now is that some people have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and that predisposition sort of lies dormant until triggered. That would explain how both could be true: it could be genetic and triggered by environment/trauma.
- peterfirefly 3y ago
  There are enough cases of identical twins where one twin gets it and the other doesn't that we are certain it can't just be genetic. We are also certain that genes matter. We even know roughly which genes and that many of the variants that increase the risk are de novo mutations. We don't know much more than that, though.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    It's difficult to believe that there are many sets of identical twins out there where one was abused and the other treated well or whatever. Were these identicals raised apart, or together? Are there enough of each to see a difference in rates between those raised together and apart? Whatever the triggers are, I can't help but think that they're subtle and unmemorable.
  - 3y ago

irsagent 3y ago

https://archive.is/9TCQZ https://archive.is/9TCQZ

glyphy177 3y ago

[dead]

freedude 3y ago

This isn't news. The link between schizophrenia and cannabis use was known in mental health world before it was ever made illegal. The legalization crowd wouldn't promote that. The news is the problem is increasing and a 3 in 10 chance of males becoming schizophrenic is a reason to avoid it. Now I wonder what the correlation of cannabis use to active shooter incidents is?

mark_mc 3y ago
The “3 in 10” in the article refers to the rate of developing cannabis use disorder, not schizophrenia.
blacksmith_tb 3y ago
Betting that was supposed to read "made legal" but the point is clear, the link is very well known both to the medical world and culturally at large. The question of mass shootings and cannabis is interesting, it doesn't seem as likely that someone, even experiencing serious paranoid schizophrenia would go out into the world shooting (instead of barricading themselves), but then I haven't seen statistics for the use of amphetamines or opioids or alcohol by shooters either.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
  I'm guessing that this statistic wouldn't be very helpful or interesting. Even if the number is 100%, they all drink water and eat food too. A more interesting statistic would be rate of 1st-3rd degree murders committed on different drugs, and/or what percentage of cannabis users commit violent crimes in general.
  - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
    Sure, correlation is not causation at all, though notably 99.999% of water drinking food eaters don't commit mass murder. My knee-jerk assumption is that stoners are not as likely to rush around committing violent crimes as drunks or people on meth, but maybe that's over-optimistic.
3y ago

whats_a_quasar 3y ago

There's a really interesting line of research that suggests Schizophrenia is a spectrum, rather than a binary. Lots of people have personality traits that are similar to schizophrenics or have genetic risk factors for the condition. Some of those people develop the full disorder, and some don't. There's evidence that the reason for the split is that psychosis is itself damaging. Once someone has a psychotic episode, they are much likelier to have more. But the earlier a psychotic episode is interrupted, by anti-psychotics or therapy, the better outcomes are. So the implication is that many people have some degree of vulnerability to schizophrenia, and only those who have psychotic breaks develop the full condition. That's a possible causal explanation for a link between marijuana and schizophrenia. Someone who's got some vulnerability to psychosis, but wouldn't otherwise have developed schizophrenia, might be pushed over the edge by heavy drug use. This jives also with anecdotal reports of people who've had really terrible reactions to other psychedelics. There's a fascinating account by a psychologist who's also schizophrenic. He didn't have his first psychotic break until he was 33, far later than average. He talks about the personality traits of schizophrenics, how he noticed something was off and got early therapy, and how he credits that with delaying a psychotic break and improving his outcomes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632294/ Not a doctor or scientist, just regurgitating research I read for personal interest.

wahern 3y ago
> There's a really interesting line of research that suggests Schizophrenia is a spectrum, rather than a binary. I don't think it was ever considered binary. Rather, previously the variance was explained in terms of discrete subtypes and comorbidities. I guess now the field is moving toward a model that is more fluid and away from a rigid ontology, at least to the extent the ontology deigned to reflect distinct pathogeneses. I'm tempted to believe that there's an improved appreciation that progression isn't inevitable, and can be halted with management. But whatever assumptions the literature made on that score (and I'm not familiar with the literature), I'd bet most patient clinicians have always appreciated this. Understanding the why's and how's was always and still remains the problem.
kayodelycaon 3y ago

sosodev 3y ago

I wish I could read the study but it is paywalled. The author of this article calls it "a new study of almost 7 million health records" but really it's a review of 20 other studies. So I wonder how they came up that number. Also, it doesn't make much sense to me to draw correlations between "high potency" cannabis and these outcomes. The potency of the cannabis shouldn't matter nearly as much as the amount of total THC consumed within a single session or whatever, right? I would think it's just harder to consume a ton of THC when the potency is lower. edit: The commenter lisasays has found and linked the actual study the article is based off of. Apparently it just wasn't linked in the article.

lisasays 3y ago

Original journal article (apparently not linked to in the Bloomberg piece): Association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia stronger in young males than in females (May 4 2023) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/association-between-cannabis-use-disorder-and-schizophrenia-stronger-in-young-males-than-in-females/E1F8F0E09C6541CB8529A326C3641A68 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici... Interestingly, the journal article doesn't bother to mention how cannabis use disorder (CUD) is defined; however, Bloomberg's description "frequent use despite negative consequences" is essentially that of the DSM, and so is presumably what they're using. That is - not based any particular rate of consumption (which is of course difficult to measure reliably, especially in prohibitionist countries like Denmark). But "continued use despite negative consequences". And that seems to be the crux of the matter: what the article is saying, basically, is that "people who continue to use despite negative consequences ... continue to suffer negative consequences." Which is rather different from: "Heavy use, by itself, brings these consequences."

sosodev 3y ago
Oh that's interesting. I thought the linked review study was what they were referencing. Why would they reference a study as the basis for the entire article without linking to it? .-. This really seems like bad journalism for the sake of clickbait.
- autoexec 3y ago
  It feels like I see this a lot more recently and not just with science articles. Someone will write an entire article about a subject and never provide enough information for anyone to reach any informed opinion about it at all. It might be an article about a controversial statement someone made, but they'll never quote or link to what was actually said and instead only talk about the drama surrounding it. When the article is about the text of a proposed law, the law is rarely linked to and is often not even named. It feels like I see way more links to random people's tweets from news sources than links to actual sources. I guess commentary gets more clicks than content, but I the content is what actually matters and is usually what I'm interested in.

surfsvammel 3y ago

Interesting. My dad developed schizophrenia in his twenties and had been smoking a lot of marijuana. I have always wondered if the smoking triggers something in him. I will always wonder.

elliekelly 3y ago
I’m curious how we could ever reasonably parse cause and effect here? I think it’s possible smoking a lot of marijuana triggers something in certain people that causes schizophrenia but I also think it’s possible that people in the early stages of schizophrenia might seek out marijuana as a way of self-soothing. Or maybe it could even be a bit of both?
- tysam_and 3y ago
  It could, though there is some work I believe on certain receptors which THC also happens to increase the activation of activating latent schizophrenia.
- bjourne 3y ago
  FTA: "For example, in Denmark, the incidence of schizophrenia steadily increased from 2000 to 2012 (Kühl, Laursen, Thorup, & Nordentoft, Reference Kühl, Laursen, Thorup and Nordentoft2016), and the schizophrenia population attributable risk fraction (PARF) for CUD increased three- to fourfold over the past two decades, parallel to increases in THC concentration (Hjorthøj, Posselt, & Nordentoft, Reference Hjorthøj, Posselt and Nordentoft2021). The increased THC content may thus, along a potential increase in the prevalence of CUD, be a main driver of the population-level increase in PARF between CUD and schizophrenia." The explanation "increased THC content causes more schizophrenia" is clearly more plausible than "more schizophrenia causes increased THC content".
  - throwawayadvsec 3y ago
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DNK/denmark/healthcare-spending https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DNK/denmark/healthcare... In 2000 Denmark was spending 2496$ yearly per capita on healthcare, in 2012 it was 6004$(taking inflation into account: 2496$ in 2000 was 3,327.91$ in 2012) Maybe they just got better at detecting it? Your reasoning is akin to saying that it's likely that vaccines cause autism because of some overlapping charts, correlation is not causation.

iamnotsure 3y ago

Frequent mouse button clicks increase software hangs in desktop environments, study finds. (MJ is an ancient medicine, it can't and won't cause any disease; proper use is a remedy for many)

graypegg 3y ago
It can’t and won’t cause any disease? I’m on the side of MJ as medicine and for recreational use, but we really should pretend that because something is an ancient medicine that it’s somehow incapable of causing harm.
- iamnotsure 3y ago
  Ingesting excessive amount of anything can cause harm. It's easier to die from water overconsumption or random allergic reaction than MJ. Spreading fear, misinformation or promoting prohibition is not humane. MJ is overall safer than alcohol.
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    I think it's less useful to compare marijuana to something that can literally be classified as a poison (albeit a legal and socially acceptable one) and more useful to determine the boundaries of "when is it safe to use this substance?" We're coming out of the era of "marijuana bad. marijuana addictive. gateway drug. gives you cancer. makes you kill your parents." etc etc and moving into actually trying to figure out general guidelines for when it's good/bad. I don't think trying to determine these boundaries is fear or misinformation necessarily. I think it certainly can be weaponized in either direction, but for people looking to determine if it's right for them, this is useful information. And you're saying overconsumption is bad...can you define this? Just in this thread, there was someone who started their journey with it on a 15mg edible. That's insanely high for a beginner but maybe they read somewhere it was fine, or they had a psychonaut friend misguide them, or they just jumped right in with no frame of reference at all. The point is, if people are doing shit like that, it makes sense for there to be more of a general awareness of "here are the bad things that can happen."

tysam_and 3y ago

If anyone wants a technical reason, (as best as I understand), this could very well be a very straightforward consequence of THC sensitizing the D2 receptor, which so far at least has been shown to happen in some parts of the brain (https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201291 https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201291), as best as I understand. D2 is the primary receptor that many antipsychotics (especially the newer ones) target -- the first generation by completely blocking it, the third by partially agonizing it -- I.E., partially causing it to activate. However, third generation anitpsychotics activate it at a much lower value than dopamine itself would, so you potentially get fewer of the catastrophic side effects than you would from something like haloperidol or risperidone. However all three generations end up balancing out in the end to where they're actually not too terribly far apart in terms of side effects for the benefit provided, if I understand correctly, third generation antipsychotics like Abilify (aripiprazole) do hold an edge here. D2 is one of the the receptors used for psychotomimetic models of the brain -- stimulating it tends to bring forward both the positive and negative effects of schizophrenia if I remember correctly. Another psychotomimetic pathway is NMDA antagonism, which makes sense as glutamate is implicated in schizophrenia. What is interesting is that D2 agonists can help trigger latent schizophrenia, which exists genetically and often becomes obvious in the forefront by the late teens and early twenties. Marijuana use before the brain fully develops also has permanent effects on this brain in the same time range (not saying they're necessarily related). Schizophrenia does have some very clear structural causes -- for example, pyramidal neurons in some parts of the brain, if I remember correctly, are inverted to route information to lower layers in certain parts than higher ones. These are the neurons that collate and process many-to-one inputs->outputs. One of the interesting things about schizophrenia is that it results (if I recall correctly) in _lower_ brain entropy on the whole, which is not what one might expect with an information routing issue. This means that one might not reap the benefits of having excess information flow, since not only is there noise being added to the system, the confidence of the outputs of the system are increased. Many people who are schizophrenic tend to have a flat affect and are asocial, and will often have a tendency to safely pull away from society and keep to themselves, for example. They also have a lower tendency to become violent. This partially means, for example, that counterintuitively, that people who are schizophrenic, at least (and I would assume this applies as well to those who have schizophrenic tendencies) tend to have a lower violent crime rate as well. There are outliers, for example in homeless camps intercity, that can make schizophrenics seem more violent, though I would blame this on the human tendency of us valuing long tail events over uneventful ones for determining important information (something absolutely necessary for raw survival in a generally oftentimes cruel and unforgiving world -- society or no. It is unfortunately a useful bias to have). All in all, this is a very interesting (if very tough, hard, and sad at times, to be quite frank!) topic, and does bear much of our interest and empathy. Please be sure to ground yourself in the science of it all, and I encourage you to keep pursuing knowledge about this subject matter. There is not necessarily much new under the sun, and a lot of these studies are not anything surprising, shocking, or novel, but instead confirmation of certain hypotheses or theories that have been running in the community for quite a while. Of course, we don't know for sure if this what this is -- this is one person who is not in the medical community's take on it (albeit with a fair bit of personal interest and investment in the topic), and someone who is a skilled researcher particular to the subject matter area might give you a different and/or better view on it. Source for interest in this case is that I am very much interested in psychopharmacology, and it's been an, er, rather involved hobby of mine for a while in terms of the amount of papers and such that I've read on the matter (I also took a graduate class in it for funsies online through the Harvard extension school. I can recommend that experience -- it's not that hard to get into, and you get some _quality_ course material, guest speakers from around the field (!!!!), and lectures). Feel free to let me know if you have any questions! Much love!!!! <3 :)))) :'D <3

shehrosemian 3y ago

A socio-positivistic statistical study that involves a molecular substance-human interaction is already epistemically imprecise and type-theoretically invalid. You would want a molecular-human statistical study, even for just one person to obtain more precise objective data. Throw the experimental design out and try a responsively appropriate approach for the subject matter, I would advise.

firatsarlar 3y ago

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firatsarlar 3y ago
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NickC25 3y ago

I find that weed's effects just heighten a person's extremes. I become slow, almost indecisively slow on the stuff. It does calm my ADHD slightly, but it also helps me sleep. I also only use the stuff at night, generally an hour or two before bed and after all my needs are taken care of. It turns my neurotic brother into a short-tempered asshole. He uses the stuff several times daily. Guess people react differently to a whole variety of substances. Who knew?

y-curious 3y ago
Have you looked into ADHD and cannabis? The TLDR from my reading is that it actually improves your focus and lessens symptoms BUT those improvements also come with the downside of getting stoned.
- agentwiggles 3y ago
  This is not my experience. I find that weed makes my mind wander randomly down all sorts of tracks. Sometimes this can be fun, interesting, and insightful, but it's certainly not a state that helps my already very poor focus.
  - NickC25 3y ago
    Mine too. It can be fun, but seldom is. If I'm already focused on a task, I can get a burst of creativity, but sometimes that just opens the rabbit hole and I inevitably fall in. Example: gaming while stoned. I might get one game of online chess while high that represents my absolute peak level - I've beaten up to 2300+ rated players...the only problem is I'll turn around and loose to someone 400-500 points lower than me in the very next game. While high, my mind wanders like no other.

kitanata 3y ago

You have these cells in your brain called Microglia. They are responsible for cleaning up neurons and plaques and other weird proteins. These Microglia are activated by the firing neurons which release 2-AG and AEA (Anadamide). AEA binds to the CB1 receptor in these Microglia. 2-AG binds to CB2. THC binds to CB1. CBD binds to CB2. Autistic adults have significantly low blood serum levels of AEA. Autistic people’s neurons prune slower. Schizophrenic people’s neurons prune faster. It seems the ECS system is the principal driving mechanism behind both conditions. We need a lot more research in this area, but it could be THC has a positive neurological affect on Autistic people whereas finding a blocker for AEA binding on Microglia may result in a positive neurological affect on Schizophrenic people. The next few years will be especially interesting.

wowlookatme 3y ago
As somebody with autism and a history of cannabis abuse I'm curious to read more about this. Any pointers on where I could start?
- kitanata 3y ago
  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34744824/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34744824/ This is a review not a study. It is designed to give you a broad view of current areas of active research. It does not validate any of the research it discusses. It just says “this is what is out there”. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
denton-scratch 3y ago
Empirically (based on my own observations) I've known for decades that weed induced episodes in schizophrenic people. I didn't know it was helpful for autistic people. On the same (personal observation) basis, I'd say that schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis. I have no idea why; perhaps because they're often very marginalized and precarious.
- mikrl 3y ago
  One of my stoner friends in high school 10-15 years ago was dating an autistic girl, and he mentioned that it had some medical benefit for them. Obviously it was ‘pothead science’ without a mechanism etc but it has been a thing anecdotally for at least as long as the medical push has existed.

xupybd 3y ago

My father was a mental health social worker. He worked with youths, mainly teens. In his experience the vast majority of teens that ended up in his hospital had some drug fueled episode that led to their mental health crisis. He told me that he didn't think the drugs caused the mental illness but we're often the trigger. That is these kids already had a mental illness that had not started to present symptoms until it was triggered. My father was not opposed to drug use. He had a history of recreational drug use and many of his life long friends are heavy marijuana users. So I don't think this observation came from an anti drug bias.

sjc02060 3y ago
Is that to assume these kids would've got mentally ill anyway, just later down the line?
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  I think that's a safe assumption. Things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder tend to get worse with time.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  That might be what parent is assuming. My view is that (a) they're already mentally ill; and (b) the psychedelic can trigger severe episodes that wouldn't otherwise have happened. I don't know how cannabis works for people with bipolar. Laing used to interpret all psychotic disorders as the same thing. I'm not sure that's right. It seems to me that the different types of bipolar are suffficiently distinct that it's unsafe to declare them variants of the same condition. And I'm pretty sure they're not on a continuum with schizophrenia. I don't know; I'm neither a doctor nor a therapist. It's just that a surprising proportion of the people I've known well have turned out to have some kind of psychotic disorder. Perhaps they're attracted to me, or me to them. Either way, perhaps I could be used as a kind of diagnostic sign.
- xupybd 3y ago
  I suspect so. My Father was only observing what he saw. He wasn't researching the cause. The key take away for me was that he was working with young people. I suspect these people may have ended up in mental health care but much later in life. If this were true you'd expect less of the later in life diagnoses to be drug related. I have no data on that.

hulitu 3y ago

> Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds So it is not a problem unless i already have schizophrenia.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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dahwolf 3y ago

flatiron 3y ago
I believe the question has always been causation or correlation. Do people with schizophrenia use marijuana to self medicate or does marijuana cause schizophrenia. Apparently from this study it’s the later.
styren 3y ago
Can you define "heavy users"?

motohagiography 3y ago

I would wonder what schizophrenia means, as I often joke that some of the insanely potent cannabis for sale at two-shops-on-every-block in Canada is basically recreational schizophrenia. It absolutely affects the quality of peoples reasoning and creates hallucinatory associations and beliefs, if only temporarily. I also feel like the only person who apprecaites how funny it is that a government that legalized smoking unlimited amounts of pot had to pass consequent legislation to fight the propagation of conspiracy theories. The mental health aspect of this is very serious though. I've seen some real burnout and moreso, social withdrawal. In Canada, we're sounding this all out in real time, and some days the drugs seem like palliative care for an old culture and society whose end is being hastened.

pnathan 3y ago

This confirms the widespread anecdotes online, where so and so's friend smoked way too much and had a mental break(more rarely, the sufferer speaks for themselves). I'm glad to see research on this, but I hope it doesn't spawn another wave of reflexive & unthinking anti-drug legislation.

1970-01-01 3y ago

This is news?? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/ First sentence: Cannabis is a known risk factor for schizophrenia. There's more, but read it for yourself.

Etheryte 3y ago
Science is not a one off definitive answer to things. We need to study things, restudy things and replicate results. So yes, a repeat study on something studied before can very much be news, if it replicates the previous results then it's often even good news.

Yorch 3y ago

Studies have proven that decades ago.

firatsarlar 3y ago

That's the funny and uninhibited stance on the applied side of science. The subject is discussed only as matter, abstracting it from values such as culture, life and history, and its effects on pure matter and the human body - again a perception of matter. There is no meaning, culture or context in it. It's just ridiculous. The sad thing is, when man has countless problems, serious unresolved problems - let's just say Cancer - why this kind of research? The basic logic is control, demeaning and desertification. The human-thing relationship cannot be explained only at the atomic level. The coffee you drink with a person changes according to the person and gains a place in your world of meaning, you may not forget what you talked for years. On a substance level, yes, a panic attack as you drink - presumably - some kind of excitement? The reaction and meaning of a machine-like body and brain to the substance it consumes just to do more work?! I could not adopt the limitless and meaningless scientific approach, I could not find an enlightening side?! Is science real?

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago

I used to smoke in high school and college and it was great, no negative effects. Then I took maybe a half year break at 21. When I smoked again I would get super anxious and paranoid. To the point where I just needed to go lay in bed and wait it out. I thought I smoked too much or it was stronger than what I was used to. Took it a bit easier the next time. Same thing. I stuck to methylone, ketamine, methoxetamine, 2C-E, and a little LSD after that. I was fine with all of those. Then one night I'm hanging out with some people I barely know, I had a little methylone and ketamine in me, took a puff or 2 of weed. Full blown psychosis for the next 12+ hours. I was convinced they were cops and I locked myself in the bathroom all night. I didn't touch weed or much of anything for a couple years after that. Fast forward to 2013, I'm living in Tacoma, weed was just legalized, I take a hit and I'm good, take another one and full blown anxiety attack and paranoia. Ok maybe edibles are ok, so I ate some edibles a few months later, not so bad, pretty chill. Over the years since then I've tried smoking, vaping, and eating THC and it usually leads to paranoia and anxiety. Not always though, it's like I'm just really sensitive to it and it's really easy to overdo it. I've found that the newer edibles that are from hemp extract and are only like 5mg THC are excellent. I drink a seltzer and I'm just chill and having a good time. 2 seltzers and I can feel the anxiety start to come on, but I'm still good. This whole time I've just been trying to chase that feeling it used to give me in high school.

agentwiggles 3y ago
I spent several years in my early 20s as a daily smoker, but at some point in the last few years, I crossed some sort of line, and I seemingly can't smoke at all anymore without winding up anxious as hell. Ultimately this led to me just totally giving the stuff up, which isn't the worst outcome. I still miss certain aspects of it, but after consistently having bad experiences for a while, it seems that I'm just better off without it. I don't really drink either, so my vices now are limited to vaping and a very occasional small dose of mushrooms. /shrug, worse problems to have I guess.

Maursault 3y ago

> Heavy marijuana Ordinary marijuana is measured fractions of an ounce or in grams. A half gram in a bowl, which is a lot, contains many doses. I've never heard of this heavy marijuana, but it should be easy enough to identify and avoid.

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spicyusername 3y ago

Can we please stop making marijuana so strong. I already cut my marijuana with 50% CBD, and that's still plenty strong that I only need a single hit to be plenty high. I can't for the life of me understand why there's a race to the highest imaginable THC percentage, when it so clearly has an adverse effect on the experience.

agentwiggles 3y ago
100% agree. I think that the industry as a whole really optimized for the wrong thing for a very long time. It seems like in legal states, there's been a move towards more balanced strains (or at least, those have a niche in the market), but it seems like everyone was going for 30% THC by weight, and as little CBD as possible. The "mids" I used to smoke back in my teenage years gave a better (read: more fun and relaxing) high than most of the "dank" weed I've smoked as an adult.
alephu5 3y ago
I imagine the people paying the most money have a high tolerance.

electrondood 3y ago

n=1, in high school I was smoking a lot of weed, and started having what I discovered years later are called "ideas of reference," where you start getting the sense that the people around you are talking about you, but secretly. At face value, there's nothing you can point to as evidence of this, because it all appears to be normal conversation, but there's a secret meaning that only you can hear. You're basically projecting your unconscious onto random stimuli, like the conversations of bystanders. If you start believing that this is reality, then it becomes "delusions of reference." I later learned this can be related to low folate or B12, and suspect that was also a cause. Interestingly enough, I'm also fairly confident I'm autistic.

rhinoceraptor 3y ago
You may have an MTHFR polymorphism that leads to low folate/B12, those SNPs are correlated with autism, schizophrenia, among other things. I have the homozygous C677T SNP and recently started taking methyl folate and methylated B12 and noticed I get much better sleep and less brain fog.
- electrondood 3y ago
  I thought the same but checked all the known SNPs for my genome and did not find any. Maybe I should check again.

lionelholt 3y ago

Bloomberg's headline very different vs the actual conclusion of the study: "Young males might be particularly susceptible to the effects of cannabis on schizophrenia. At a population level, assuming causality, one-fifth of cases of schizophrenia among young males might be prevented by averting CUD. Results highlight the importance of early detection and treatment of CUD and policy decisions regarding cannabis use and access, particularly for 16–25-year-olds."

CharlesW 3y ago

This is purely anecdotal, but it reminds me of the recent mental health revelation by Kevin Smith. He was baked all day, every day for 15 years, but quit cold turkey after checking himself into a facility for a month. I thought his discussion about it was interesting. Clearly there was other stuff going on, but he apparently felt his cannabis use was enough of a contributing factor that he decided to stop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvc7Ny4iUk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvc7Ny4iUk

wktra 3y ago
As a former die-hard KS fan, this recent People Magazine spotlight/feature/confessional pretty much helped me realize he's a master carny-barker.

m463 3y ago

I thought that marijuana interfered with sleep, and you just didn't get your proper REM sleep. So if you continue it - REM sleep deprivation has side effects. and if you stop it - your body will try to make up for lost time (REM) and make you hallucinate a lot. maybe all of this is related to schizophrenia

mandmandam 3y ago

PSA: With regard to psychosis, there's a big difference between high THC cannabis and high CBD cannabis. Huge. If you are one of the many who comment with confidence on this issue, but are not aware of the distinction, please consider looking into it.

cushpush 3y ago

I think also combustion of materials leads to more carcinogen intake. Vaporization of material is much safer, and I would like to see studies on this.

ehPReth 3y ago

While we're on the topic; is there like a marijuana that doesn't give you the munchies?

lakomen 3y ago

Old news. I blame the highly potent breeds since NLX. The THC concentration is so high that it's too much. Nowadays weeds are even more potent than NLX. Of course our brains can't handle that. IMHO those kinds of super weeds are harmful and should be banned. I'm speaking from my own experience and have seen many friends on stationary observation.

Takennickname 3y ago

100% don't doubt it for a second