People who smoke marijuana daily or weekly double their risk of developing a psychotic illness over their lifetime, according to a study published Thursday.
Among all cannabis users, including sporadic experimenters and habitual users, the lifetime risk of psychotic illness increased by 40%, the report said.
“It’s not as if you smoke a joint and you’re going to go crazy,” said Richard Rawson, who directs the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at UCLA and was not involved in the study.
But he cautioned: “It’s definitely not a good idea to use heavy amounts of marijuana.”
The researchers found that the risk for psychotic illnesses did appear to increase with dose, suggesting that stopping marijuana use would decrease risk, said coauthor Dr. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol in Britain.
“Dr. Victor Reus, a psychiatrist at UC San Francisco who was not involved in this study, said he was unconvinced by Zammit’s conclusions for both psychotic and mood disorders.”
The article does not give any scientific ‘specifics’ for Dr. Reus’ comment. Therefore it has to be regarded as an opinion until the specifics are presented.
But since he is in California, and more importantly in San Francisco, I am not suprised. After all, San Francisco is an epi-center for pot smoking, among other things.
AnglicanFirst says:
[blockquote] San Francisco is an epi-center for pot smoking, among other things.[/blockquote]
And perhaps among those other things would be psychotic and mood disorders?
In some people I’ve known, the toking and the disorder seemed to occur simultaneously. This leaves me wondering whether the authors of the study could adequately filter out preexisting but undiagnosed tendencies towards mental illness. Potheads tended to self-select in ways not representative of the total population.
PS: Ah, to think I’m here writing about pot-smoking in the past tense—after college years spent in the <1% weed-abstaining minority of my college class.
PPS: Don't miss the reefer-madness sunglasses in a photo accompanying the article!
Speaking to people involved in our charity devoted to schizophrenia support they are reporting increased requests for help from families where very young people have been diagnosed who have been smoking pot. Tragic.
I’ve noticed that schizophrenics I’ve know didn’t smoke pot, but did smoke cigarettes heavily. Just about everybody I know who did smoke pot seemed to grow out of it and move on to productive lives with no disorders. I would need to see some evidence and follow up studies before I could buy this.
Perhaps the new genetically altered strains of the wacky weed could be responsible.
John316 [#5]: Your schizophrenia observation might be consistent with a self-selection hypothesis [cf. my comment #3]. From what I’ve seen, teenage smokers as a group tend to be more rebellious and alienated from adults than teenagers as a group. Teen smokers’ parents (who tend to be smokers themselves) may as a group have lower impulse-control than others their age. (But I won’t suggest this in a room full of smokers, little knowing what impulses I might unleash.)
Irenaeus, I’ve seen studies indicating that marijuana use is a symptom of ADHD. It seems that it is used to self-medicate, along with cafeine, and unfortunately “crank”. Some believe that “medical marijuana” as a treatment for ADHD merits further study. I don’t know, but I wonder if there has been a rise in psychotic disorders that would correspond with the rise in the use of marijuana over the last 50 years.
Similar connections with psychosis exist with other drugs and with alcohol. Connection does not necessarily mean causation. Marijuana use is probably a symptom that turns into a contributing factor, i.e., if one’s grip on the common perception of reality is shaky to begin with, staying high most of the time will not improve it.
Most more moderate pot smokers whom I have met are sane and productive. The usual exception to that is a persecution complex in which the smoker thinks that the government and news media are after him for no good reason.
[blockquote]The usual exception to that is a persecution complex in which the smoker thinks that the government and news media are after him for no good reason.[/blockquote]
Dale, are you insinuating that most Republicans are pot smokers?
I just finished watching “Beautiful Dreamer” a documentary about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and his breakdown following the release of “Pet Sounds.” I have no doubt there was a connection (yes, I know that correlation does not imply causation) between his drug abuse and his downfall.
Very sad. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen with others.
ARe most moderate pot smokers sane and productive? Well, yes and no, as a matter of fact.
The first problem is that pot is a gateway drug. This can hardly be debated any more. And moderate pot smokers, however sane and productive today, suffers reverses and do what other moderate pot smokers have done, which is retreat into being stoned as a way of removing stress. This is what they learned how to deal with life’s problems in high school. And then,at some point, it isn’t sufficient. Is this a familiar story?
What’s more important, perhaps, is that moderate pot smokers buy not only the grass but the sub culture as well, and this is a drug of a potent sort indeed. They stay sane and they keep a job, but what they pass on to their children – have been passing on now for two generations – is the subculture and all the evils it entails. Their children go to hell in a handbasket, and they can’t understand why. How often have I seen this in high school adolescents? I cannot count the times. Moreover, I now have met a number of modest poptheads who, thinking grass harmless, smoke it with their kids, and then we repeat what I cited above. Over and over. “I don’t understand it, Mr. Morse, he was always a good kid, never got in trouble, either at home or in school. I never saw him really stoned, and we tried to keep the problem, which is everywhere, inside the house, like teaching a kid how to drink sensibly, y’know? And now all of a sudden we can’t do anything with him….”
I have heard the “moderate pot smoker” argument too many times. It’s merely a rationalization. LM
John 316,
The news media persecute all of us who do not fit their categories, but I am not so sure that the government (and we usually mean the US Government by that) has been after the average Republican lately. If you are a liberal or libertarian Republican like me, they have indeed been on one’s tail. It gets worse when one feels the current controversies in Anglican Christianity have arisen over the wrong questions.
Still, I was amused. You are right, too.
Larry Morse,
I appreciate the depth of your feeling, but I have heard the same nonsense about a marijuana subculture for the last thirty years or more. Are you having much success counseling students and parents along those lines? All of my experience indicates that your “subculture” would exist with or without marijuana. It is only a gateway drug because it is illegal and opens the way to disrespect for the law. The same correlations exist between hard drugs and alcohol and tobacco, and between milk and heroin. I have met irresponsible parents, too, and I believe you have classified them too neatly according to your prejudices. I have experience in education, human services, and politics. I do not say this lightly. I think in these cases you are doing more harm than good. These kids and their parents are using drugs because they are rebelling against people like you. I expect that both the parents and the kids go home and laugh about Mr Morse. Not always, because what you do works now and then because you are sincere even though you are sadly, badly mistaken.
Man makes whiskey, but God grows grass—
Brother Dave Gardner
There is no rational response to #12 short of a whole book. I do hope the rest of you realize that practically everything he said does not square with the real world. Can you imagine arguing the marijuana is not a gateway drug after all the evidence? Well, Dale, keep on smokin’. Larry
“I expect that both the parents and the kids go home and laugh about Mr Morse”
I doubt it.
Larry,
I raised a number of legitimate questions. You addressed none of them. Why do you not write a book back to me if that is what it would take to justify your position? Your response to me is disappointing.
It seems like I am reiterating my indirect questions about your professional or scholarly qualifications and getting nothing from you but suggestions that I have less practical experience. That might be far from the truth.
I will gladly debate you, here or elsewhere.
I’m no fan of “domino theories”, but I have observed that maybe all of the pot smokers in my life started out smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, usually in their early teens and well before their parents were aware. I wonder if cigarettes and alcohol could be gateway drugs, and have there been any studies on the relationship between alcohol, tobacco and psychotic disorder? Does anybody know a smoker who didn’t start rather defiantly and rebelliously before they were “of age”?
My experience has been that they are indeed gateway drugs when they are coupled with (A) rebelliouness, and (B) a culture of permissiveness, a culture wherein self discipline and self restraint have failed. The drugs/sex/rocknroll subculture is, as you know, still with us, and it is in this context that all drug use, of any sort, became a gateway. Marijuana is clearly the model because its use was so common and its effects so manifest. The failure of our former culture of self-restraint is the real criminal; the r/s/r and r subculture is both a cause and an effect.
Incidentally, one clear (but circumstantial) result of years of pot smoking has been the turn of such smokers to fundamentalist religions when they give up the wicked weed. Larry
Larry,
It would appear that the “gateway” is rebelliousness and poor impulse control. If pot is in fact a “gateway” drug (and I have never seen any biological evidence of such), then there should be far more hard drug users than there are.
I’m a frequent pot smoker…also a homeowner with an excellent job and thriving freelance business (and yes, I tithe). I don’t drink or smoke tobacco, I just enjoy a bong hit with my wife at the end of the day. We’ve both been smoking on and off since college.
Somehow, we’ve managed not to turn into heroin addicts or psychotics, and I don’t know what “subculture” we’re involved with, unless you mean the Vestry, and while weed might make the casseroles at the potlucks a bit more tolerable, we don’t share with them.
Legalization/oversight would go a long way towards eliminating the gateway thing; if your weed dealer also has other, more profitable, wares to sell you, you’re more likely to be offered a sample. If we didn’t have to know criminal drug dealers in order to buy weed, because it was available in more controlled (taxed!) settings, poof, no gateway effect. Don’t turn me into a criminal and I won’t be one.
Also, I suspect there has been a rise in diagnosed psychiatric disorders because we now have meds to treat them. Finding a solution (however imperfect, and there is much to be desired still in our treatment of mental illness) to something will generally reveal the scope of the original problem.
Clayton makes a good point. Nearly everyone involved in teaching, leading, or counseling young people over the last ten to twenty years has noticed an upsurge in the number of psychological and psychiatric diagnoses. It is no wonder that many of us have wondered if the incidence of mental health problems has been rising, and if drugs might be a factor.
I, and most of the colleagues with whom I have discussed this, think that increased diagnosis is the major factor. That can be good and it can be bad. Too often, we diagnose a sickness in the soul as a problem that can be solved with the right prescription of drugs. We think that the best response to a crisis is to call in professional counsellors rather than to show simple love and understanding. We lack the decency to repect those whose have chosen to keep some of their suffering between the Lord and themselves.
Drugs are nothing until they interact with a human who takes them. That interaction is individual. If you see a subculture, you are making your own classification.
They didn’t diagnose psychological disorders until relatively recently. It wasn’t until 1965 that ADHD was recognized as something that could be treated with amphetamines. Before that, it was thought that the children were just lazy or willfully disobedient, rebellious. Not to mention that my parent’s generation just didn’t believe in psychiatry because “that was for crazy people”, so they wouldn’t have brought a child in for a diagnosis, and no one would have been surprised when the rebellious little guy started basically self medicating with drugs and alcohol.
Drugs and rebellion. It’s often coincidence, not correlation.
Larry Morse,
I am still waiting to hear from you. You, too, Irenaeus.
Did we convince you that you were mistaken? I doubt it. Are you afraid to argue with us? It could be so, but you seem more confident than that.
Regards,
Ratramnus