Cannabis linked to earlier psychosis onset

Reuters ^ | September 10, 2008 | Unknown

[mefistofelerevised]

I remember seeing that movie. Man you made me feel old.

[devere]

“It is my contention... and the contention of any number of substance abuse professionals... that people with psychological issues self-medicate with these substances.”

That’s a very interesting hypothesis, and quite possibly true; and exactly what I told my son when he asked me if pot was really dangerous. I told him that no one really knows if pot causes madness, or madness causes pot use. So even aside from the importance of obeying the law, it is best to play it safe and avoid this quite possibly hazardous substance.

I also remember the lie detector question I was asked many years ago while interviewing for a famous Wall Street bank: “Have you used any illegal drug other than marijuana?”. I inferred that the bank owners were themselves recreational smokers. It’s an utter disgrace that government continues to put people in jail for doing what Clinton, Bush, Palin, and Wall Street bigwigs have also done.

[Salamander]

Wow...you just made me remember a BOC concert at the [former] Cap Center in DC.

I was up in the “nosebleed section” surrounded by what appeared to be most of the USMC.

BOC finished their show “Roadhouse Blues” and naturally, it became a huge, raucous “sing along”.

Either suddenly become the musical mascot for the USMC *or* the unbelievable amount of pot fumes caused me to have an actual panic attack shortly after the song was over.

It was *horrible*.

I was totally freaked out the whole way home.
[about a 2 hour drive]

I have avoided being anywhere near people using the stuff, since then.

[USNBandit]

Oh, now you gone and done it! Prepare to be attacked by the FReedopers. You post an article like this and they attack like rabid dogs. It's like they suffer from psychosis or something.

Duck and Cover!

[Salamander]

p.s....At one Jethro Tull concert at Merriwether Post Pavilion, Ian shut the whole show down until the potheads in the front row either left or quit smoking their pot.

There was about a 15 minute Tull-lull....:))

[RKV]

Even paranoids have enemies, and when the narcs want to put you in jail for possession, then you really do have enemies - it ain’t paranoia!

[TKDietz]

This study still doesn’t rule out whether these people were already messed up and used lots of drugs to treat their problems. People with mental health problems gravitate toward alcohol and drugs. Their lives tend to be miserable and they self medicate, or “party” in an attempt to feel better. Are there more instances of serious mental illness in states where use of marijuana is highest? No, not according to our government numbers.

[Moonman62]

It’s an utter disgrace that government continues to put people in jail for doing what Clinton, Bush, Palin, and Wall Street bigwigs have also done.

It's an utter disgrace that you would characterize it that way. In almost every case, someone would have to be caught multiple times, refuse treatment, and disobey a judge before getting jail time.

[devere]

“In almost every case, someone would have to be caught multiple times, refuse treatment, and disobey a judge before getting jail time.”

Baloney. That’s just a comfortable rationalization of obvious injustice to allow you to sleep better.

[Moonman62]

Time and time again I’ve read about drug addicts saying they were thankful to go through the judicial process because it gave them the means and the motivation to get clean.

[TigersEye]

I'm willing to wager that the rabid Emocrats (Move.On, etc.) people have been heavy cannabis users since their early teen years. Why else would they display such psychotic behavior when their Messiah is uncloaked?

I don't know. I have too but no psychosis. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

[TigersEye]

You're a little paranoid aren't you? LOL

You can come out from under your desk now.

[dmz]

The wording is kind of interesting, in that it discusses earlier onset of psychosis, psychosis at an earlier age. Does this suggest that the folks would have become psychotic anyway, and reefer brought it on sooner? All of the test subjects were treated for psychoses, and the users got it earlier than the non-users.

Does this study really tell us that using pot will make you psychotic? No test subjects using marijuana but without a psychotic episode were studied.

If the message is that mentally ill people tend to self-medicate more than those not mentally ill, can I get a big 'well, duh!' from the studio audience?

Bottom line for me? Those against marijuana usage tend to gravitate towards the studies that demonstrate its harm, while those who are users tend to gravitate towards the studies that show the opposite.

Having come of age in the very early '70s (born in '58), it would just seem that I would know a LOT more people with psychoses, given the prevelance of marijuana usage back in the day (and continuing on to this day).

[jmc813]

Oh, now you gone and done it! Prepare to be attacked by the FReedopers.

I swear to God, I sometimes think some of you people are 90 years old. Get out of the house and go to a party.

[jmc813]

Time and time again I’ve read about drug addicts

It is physically impossible to be addicted to pot. The ignorance on this subject is mind-blowing.

[TKDietz]

A couple of years ago I read about a similar study and my thought was that what was more likely than the conclusion that marijuana was causing so much psychosis was that people who are mentally ill gravitate toward alcohol and drugs. I started looking at SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. They publish numbers for drug use and mental health issues for each state. I looked at the ten states with the highest per capita marijuana use, and the ten with the lowest per capita use and then looked at the mental health numbers for these states. I looked back several years and what I found was that the states with the lowest per capita marijuana use actually had higher than average per capita instances of serious mental illness and the states with the highest per capita marijuana use had lower than average per capita instances of serious mental illness. For instance, Utah usually has the lowest percentage of marijuana users, a good three times less than the states with the highest use, but consistently has among the highest percentage of people reporting serious mental illness. I don't think marijuana contributes to good mental health, but if it was really making so many people crazy we'd see a much worse mental health problems in states with the highest percentages of marijuana users.

I'd like to see more in depth studies dealing specifically with psychosis where they look at the percentage in each state experiencing psychosis in relation to the percentage who smoke marijuana. That's about the only way I can think of to test the validity of these studies. We can't really take 2000 people and give a 1000 marijuana and keep testing the other thousand to make sure they aren't using it, but that would give us a much better picture than these studies where they look at a few people with psychosis and determine which ones were smoking marijuana and draw conclusions from that. They say smoking marijuana brings psychosis on earlier, but it could very well be that people most predisposed to psychotic episodes are also most likely to gravitate toward drug use in an effort to counter the misery mental illness is bringing them. Those conducting this study concluded that up to 10% of mental illness in their area is caused by marijuana use. They're basing this on a shaky foundation of data. I'd like to see them break their area down into segments and look at the percentages of people experiencing psychosis in relation to the percentage in each geographic area that smoke marijuana. Then they'd have a much better idea of how much psychosis marijuana use is actually causing, if any.

[CholeraJoe]

All of the Dopertarians will be here with pseudoscience to disprove this.

[TKDietz]

“It is physically impossible to be addicted to pot. The ignorance on this subject is mind-blowing.”

They used to say that about cigarettes too. I don't think marijuana is anywhere near as addictive as tobacco, but clearly there are people who have a great deal of difficulty quitting marijuana, who will use it habitually when they know using it is causing them problems. Maybe it's just like Internet addiction or gambling addiction. I don't know. I tend to think though that even psychological addictions are actually physical. What goes on in your brain is not magic. It's all electrical, or chemical neurobiological function, something physical. I think there is probably less difference in what we term “physical addiction” and what we call “psychological addiction” than we think.

[TKDietz]

Studies like the one mentioned in the article are pseudoscience because they can't rule out the distinct possibility that what is really going on is that these people who smoke marijuana and later develop psychosis were actually already mentally ill to begin with and started using marijuana as a way to self medicate or get some relief from the misery they were experiencing due to their existing mental illness. There is no question whatsoever among the medical community that people with mental illness tend to gravitate toward alcohol and drug use. Whether marijuana use actually causes people to develop psychosis is still open to debate. If it really was causing so much psychosis, we'd see high instances of psychosis in geographic areas where marijuana use is most prevalent, and correspondingly lower instances of psychosis in geographic areas with low per capita marijuana use. That's not the case though, so the conclusions drawn in this study are suspect.

[jmc813]

Thank you for the well thought out response. It’s rare on these threads this day and age.