More Teens Who Use Marijuana Are Suffering from Psychosis

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/marijuana-depression-psychosis-869490d1

by nradov • 3 years ago

64 56 3 years ago

greenyoda• 3 years ago

Animats3• 3 years ago

“I see more psychotic people here than I did in Detroit. We’re just making this huge population of people who we can no longer fix.”

fxtentacle• 3 years ago

I believe this is true, but I expect that many people will refuse to accept it. Giving up on someone is super cruel, after all. But it certainly looks like some fellow citizens are beyond recovery. And then it's only prudent to make a plan on how we want to manage living in a society together with these people.

Pure capitalism says that if they are too sick to work, they'll get no money and starve. But most people are luckily not willing to be that cold-hearted. But then a society-wise compromise is needed.

beachy2• 3 years ago

UBI. Stoners sitting in their apartments watching Netflix and ordering in pizza are good for the economy and good for the environment, compared to being starving and out stealing.

sam3452• 3 years ago

I saw this in the 80s when I worked in a psyche ward. Also knew people in college this happened to. Not a new thing just worse with more potent pot. People downplay these things but I wouldn't wish psychosis on my worst enemy.

rumdz• 3 years ago

This. I consider myself very lucky. Smoked on and off for the first couple of years while at college and then one day I had a full blown psychotic episode. I genuinely believed I was dead and in hell. It took me a whole year quitting all drugs (caffeine, alcohol, marijuana) to begin to feel somewhat normal again. It's been about 12 years since that day and it feels like a distant memory.

lispisok• 3 years ago

I am not anti-legalization but marijuana is a drug and needs to respected as such. Legalization has enabled people to consume high amounts of THC frequently and we're seeing adverse effects from it.

Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome was something unheard of a few years ago

dylan6042• 3 years ago

We have done what humans do with their quest for maximizing everything and have twisted the plant so that the THC is out of balance with the rest of the cananbinoids in the plant. I'm no doctor, but from what I've read and listened to in seminars, the plants with a better balance is much better for medicinal use.

The quiet part people don't want to be said out loud is that the medical play was just to get the ball rolling towards legalization. Now that it is in several states, we're doing to marijuana what we did to IPAs and microbrews. Do everything you can to maximize disregarding the overall effect unless that desired effect is just getting wasted.

tommiegannert• 3 years ago

I wonder if the discontinuity of illegalization has made this a bigger problem than it would have been.

Many/most parents have no interest in it, because they value stability and risk aversion. When they were interested, it was illegal and a no-no. So many kids grow up with free-for-all, and with parents who can't teach them the respect they need. Add to that group pressure, and re-legalization without some sort of phasing-in seems like it would cause lots of acute issues.

zug_zug• 3 years ago

The chart in this article shows it a bit, but CBD vs THC is a huge component of this. They are not only entirely different drugs, but they have opposite effects.

I'd recommend at least 5:1 CBD to THC for people who don't want any psychoactive effects. However I think many people do want those effects.

denkmoon3• 3 years ago

Ok then. If we take the hypothesis at face value, what is to be done about it? Prohibition obviously isn't a solution as that's the status quo - it's already illegal for teens to buy and consume cannabis.

throwitaway222• 3 years ago

Remove it from people that are older so that people that are younger don't have access.

denkmoon3• 3 years ago

Doesn't seem very fair or consistent with how we balance individual freedom vs societal costs of other recreational drugs.

mpol3• 3 years ago

You almost make it sound as if there are no solutions :)

Education is an idea, let people know what the risks are and what symptons are to go see a doctor. This could be a mandatory magazine at shops.

People at risk could get better treatment, just someone to talk to about their strugles in life can be very helpful.

dylan6042• 3 years ago

You can make reading material mandatory to be handed out, but you can't make it be read. Even if you forced the person to read it then and there at time of purchase, it will just be glanced over similar to software EULA/TOS crap on apps/websites.

Ignoring that these are teenagers that are going to do whatever they want because that's what a teenager does just means that you're going to waste your time.

fleshdaddy• 3 years ago

Maybe just lowering the allowed concentration of thc in products. It’s wild how strong some of the weed is now. Splitting a joint now I imagine is quite a bit different than in the 70s.

kelnos2• 3 years ago

Education is one thing. You can't force people to learn, but things like alcohol abuse disorder are much more publicly known and understood than it used to be, and that's largely due to education campaigns.

Otherwise, we don't have to completely deregulate sale and use. Legally limit THC concentration, and/or require a certain minimum for the CBD-to-THC ratio in products. As the article (and others here) have pointed out, THC concentration has only gone up over time, especially as pot has become legalized in many places.

Certainly some people will still find/make things with higher concentrations, but legally limiting the concentration will act as education of its own, and a lot of people will end up with safer products.

jdietrich3• 3 years ago

Cannabis is a risk factor in schizophrenia, but it is a million miles from being the risk factor. Happy, healthy young people with stable family lives rarely use cannabis on a daily basis; conversely, people with troubled childhoods and pre-existing mental health problems are most at risk from heavy cannabis use.

If the goal is preventing severe mental illness, then the best solution we've got right now is coordinated and well-funded multi-agency intervention to support at-risk families and young people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_factors_of_schizophrenia

mpol3• 3 years ago

Can someone explain was this was being downvoted?

roenxi• 3 years ago

Y'know, now do alcohol. Psychoactive substances ruin lives and should be avoided unless there is a great reason to use them.

The issue is that criminal records also ruin lives and are socially self-inflicted wounds.

ejstronge3• 3 years ago

Won’t have the space/time to respond fully, but the allusions to bipolar disease and, especially, schizophrenia need to be viewed quite cautiously.

I do not believe these disorders are thought to originate from environmental factors present in late teenage years. Thus, we should expect a large increase in these diagnoses if cannabis is indeed a causative agent that is now more attainable than it used to be.

Also, individuals will instinctively self-medicate (think about a pet favoring a wounded paw). If these disorders reflect structural brain abnormalities - which they do, in large part - we then can’t distinguish whether cannabis use is a compensatory mechanism or a causative mechanism

mpol3• 3 years ago

There is not one single cause for the onset of psychosis but many factors at play. Cannabis use can be a cause. Early interception of people at risk and treatment, does bring down the number of young people having a first psychosis.

ejstronge3• 3 years ago

I am not disagreeing that cannabis may be a cause.

This kind of article doesn’t offer any evidence toward the idea outside correlations - and this kind of correlation is very tenuous.

A good example to demonstrate the idea is the outsized use of tobacco products amongst those with ADHD diagnoses. Do we immediately conclude that ADHD rates are influenced by the availability of cigarettes? Or can we instead ask how nicotine may influence neural circuits that are abnormal in ADHD?

jdietrich3• 3 years ago

It's really very difficult to untangle, because there's a huge overlap between the known risk factors for schizophrenia and the known risk factors for early and heavy use of cannabis. The best guess based on the available data is that there's a brutal statistical double-whammy - people at risk of psychosis are much more likely to use cannabis heavily [i]and[/i] are more vulnerable to the effects of cannabis.

https://sci-hub.ee/10.1016/j.ajp.2013.03.012

dullcrisp• 3 years ago

I’m noticing that these sorts of articles are always from the WSJ.

sam3452• 3 years ago

Yes we have a free press in America with diverse viewpoints. It's like rhe first schools that were integrated in the South in the 60s. One token African American in a white school was called integration.One mainstream national paper with conservative editorials in a sea of progressive papers is considered a diverse and free paper media. Besides that, I would pouint out that most WSJ news articles particularly on social issues are mostly liberally slanted these days. Any conservatism is restricted to the editorial side.

kelnos2• 3 years ago

Do you have any evidence to refute what they're saying, or are ad hominem attacks all you got?

Given the much higher potency of a lot of the pot you find in the US these days, the more-relaxed culture around it, and people's tendency to overuse illegal things that have been recently legalized, this result is hardly surprising. THC is a psychoactive compound... what do we think it's gonna do if consumed in large concentrations?

I think it's fine and good that pot is legal in many places in the US now (and hope that only expands), but I don't think education is up to par. People seem to think "oh it's safer than tobacco/alcohol/whatever" and don't really think too much about their consumption levels or frequency. I've known people who consume so much pot, that if it were alcohol, we'd be super worried about them and want them to go to AA or something. And yet, with pot, it doesn't trigger any warning bells for most people.

rabuse• 3 years ago

I can't smoke marijuana. I've tried multiple times, and it just makes my anxiety spike and I start to panic out of the blue. Even if it starts off decent, some random act will set it off, like laughing too much.

happymellon4• 3 years ago

The average THC content of cannabis seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration was 15% in 2021, up from 4% in 1995. Many products advertise THC concentrations of up to 90%.

This is really the key here as it means that previous studies that showed health benefits are completely irrelevant now.

This isn't like the image of smoking pot in the basement from the 70's anymore. I'm watching the descent of my BIL's mental health from smoking American marijuana and it's really sad.

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

This isn't like the image of smoking pot in the basement from the 70's anymore

This line has been in use (with a different antecedent period) as a prohibitionist staple since at least the 1980s.

You know how we would not have this issue? If there was legalization and regulatory standadization.

happymellon4• 3 years ago

I'm not sure of your point.

Are you saying that all previous studies of marijuana are still valid, and that strength hasn't gone up?

dns_snek2• 3 years ago

Is anyone controlling for how much people smoke today vs in the 70s, quantity-wise? Strength is relatively meaningless on its own, except for first timers who might get caught out. Our baseline genetic tolerance hasn't changed since the 70s.

People generally take/drink/smoke as much as it takes to get to where they want to be. I might drink a 0.5L of beer, or I might have a shot of liquor, but I won't have 0.5L of vodka because I'm a thinking human being who realizes that vodka is much stronger than beer. Ditto for low potency 70s cannabis vs fancy 90% extracts today.

NopeNoWay2• 3 years ago

How would anyone control it? That's more than kinda Big Brother. And the inverse issue with legalization, or even just legalization for medical use, is that it drives down the price, thus increasing the accessibility of the product still being sold illegally...you know, the totally unregulated stuff.

lgkk• 3 years ago

I was a stoner and lost years of my life because while I wasn’t a total loser (I was making bank as a swe) I didn’t make much forward momentum.

I quit cold turkey a few years ago and now my vice is maybe I’ll drink a couple of beers or wine a couple times a year on special occasions.

I am much better creatively compared to just thinking I’m creative because weed knocked my IQ down by 20-40 points and anything seems “interesting” and groundbreaking there lol.

tombert• 3 years ago

Whew, that's a big validation for myself.

I've never touched marijuana (or any illegal drug) because I've been perpetually paranoid about the possibility of it being spiked with something horrible. Even as a teenager, when all my friends were smoking weed all the time, I never even tried it because I, as a rule, don't eat or drink anything if I cannot potentially sue the person who gave it to me.

I've had my share of alcohol [1], so it's not like I'm moralizing or anything, and I do wish weed would be legalized just so we could properly research potential side effects, because what really annoys me is how much of an over-correction people have made with weed. The logic appears to be "the claims about weed's harm were really exaggerated, so therefore there's no downsides to it ever at any point". I've known people who put THC in their vape and just puff on that all day, and when I've very lightly mentioned that it might a tiny bit unhealthy to need to consume a drug all day, they give me a lecture about all the positive features of weed.

I'm at least a little glad now that I never experimented with it when I was a teenager; I got enough mental issues as it is.

[1] Not in quite awhile, and I'm a full teetotaler now since I have sleep apnea.

thefz• 3 years ago

I have several friends who smoke regularly, lots. In the range of 5,7,10 joints per day. My opinion is that you can't, in your 40s, expect to be a functional adult with that amount of THC constantly in you. It just shows, you are slow and dull and sometimes dumb.

Every time I bring this up, they go all defensive. They would not change their habit a little bit.

forgingahead• 3 years ago

Every time I bring this up, they go all defensive. They would not change their habit a little bit.

This is the biggest issue, and I'm honestly shocked that so many supposed adults in positions of authority have basically taken the position of "I like to smoke, so it's not that bad, I'm ok right? Don't insult me by saying I'm negatively affected. Of course we shouldn't control or ban this."

It's incredibly....childish. I picture 5 year olds tucking into ice-cream, and with the sugar high, just throwing absolute tantrums when you try take it away from them.

Drugs are bad, marijuana needs to be controlled like all drugs, and harsh actions need to be taken now to arrest this slide otherwise there is no turning back already.

atcalan• 3 years ago

More weed == higher rate of ID of functional psychopaths?

Teever• 3 years ago

Psychosis is not Psychopathy.

sh_hike• 3 years ago

I agree. I see all my friends in their early 20s dealing with this issue. It doesn’t make it any better when exposed to modern media. They’ve become delusional.

red-iron-pine• 3 years ago

I believe this.

My ex's whole family smoked like chimneys, but she had a few bad experiences and essentially went straight-edge outside of the occasional glass of red wine.

Her older brother had serious psychosis issues and was even institutionalized for it briefly. Was on meds, had a few rough years.

Eventually he quit because his then girlfriend got him a job at one of the few remaining Blockbusters and they demanded drug-free, ironically enough. He liked working there, and between him and the girlfriend, quit smoking. Maybe a year later he dropped the schizophrenia meds and started working out. The transformation happened while I was with my ex and it was amazing to see it play out. Like, dude was basically crazy, and in a couple years was managing a video store, had a gf, and got his shit together.

Perfectly normal guy since, at least last I heard.

DSS928• 3 years ago

I think it’s more the FACT we have closed state mental hospitals in favor of releasing mentally ill people on society. It’s not just marijuana users either, I’m not sure of the exact numbers but mental illness is more prevalent in people born during the Millenial generation moving forward today. The real difference isn’t the potency of cannabis, it’s the FACT that not “One” but they all “Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Bring back state mental health institutions and dollars to doughnuts we WILL be in a safer and more productive society.

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