Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk

[RandomGuy]

Sat Feb 27, 11:48 pm ET
SATURDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term use of marijuana can lead to increased risk of developing hallucinations, delusions and psychosis, a new study shows.


Australian researchers asked nearly 3,100 young adults averaging about 20 years of age about marijuana use. They found that almost 18 percent reported using the drug for three or fewer years, about 16 percent for four to five years, and just over 14 percent for six or more years.


Among the participants, 65 had been diagnosed with a "non-affective psychosis" such as schizophrenia, and 233 had at least one positive item for hallucination on a diagnostic interview conducted for the study.


The researchers found there was an association between length of marijuana use and mental health.


"Compared with those who had never used cannabis, young adults who had six or more years since first use of cannabis [i.e., who commenced use when around 15 years or younger] were twice as likely to develop a non-affective psychosis and were four times as likely to have high scores on the Peters et al Delusions Inventory [a measure of delusion]," wrote Dr. John McGrath, of the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, Park Centre for Mental Health in Wacol, and colleagues. "There was a 'dose-response' relationship between the variables of interest: the longer the duration since the first cannabis use, the higher the risk of psychosis-related outcomes."


The study appears online March 1 and in the May print issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.


But the association between psychosis and marijuana use is not simple, the researchers noted. They found that people who'd experienced hallucinations earlier in life were also more likely to have used marijuana longer and to use it more frequently.


"This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship: those individuals who were vulnerable to psychosis [i.e., those who had isolated psychotic symptoms] were more likely to commence cannabis use, which could then subsequently contribute to an increased risk of conversion to a non-affective psychotic disorder," wrote the study authors.


Further research is needed to learn more about the mechanisms underlying the association between psychosis and marijuana use, they concluded.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100228/hl_hsn/marijuanausecanuppsychosisrisk

[boutons_deux]

The same is true of long-term reading the Bible. :lol

Can you dig these trips, dude?

spontaneously burning bushes,
murdering your son because you heard voices in your head,
arising from the dead,
walking on water,
getting eaten by a whale and living to tell the whale tale,
the wife turning into salt,
turning water into wine (without passing the rain thru the grapes),
eating manna from the skies,
Charleton Heston dividing the Red Sea,
Bruce Almighty dividing the tomato soup,
immaculate conception and virgin birth
etc, etc, etc.

:lol

[balli]

First off, I question the validity of the study.

Second, even if the study is valid, in a world gone absolutely fucking mad, how dare anyone try to define insanity against the supposed norm. If people are going psychotic after years of use, maybe, just maybe it's because they're able to see the world for what it is. Taking the scales from your eyes and looking at the shit around you would make anyone a little crazy, especially those predisposed to it. Doesn't mean people should just put their heads in the sand. I mean, we are living in a full on dystopia. And I hardly think it's fair to label the people who understand that and purposely cultivate that understanding, as psychotics.

Finally, to me, not smoking weed is fucking crazy. Not hyperbolically. Literally. I think there is something clinically, mentally wrong with people who don't see the world through marijuana's lens.

[balli]

Well no shit your putting shit in your body and brain that isn't supposed to be there.
Quit listening to Bone. It is not music meant for you.

[J.T.]

But the association between psychosis and marijuana use is not simple, the researchers noted. They found that people who'd experienced hallucinations earlier in life were also more likely to have used marijuana longer and to use it more frequently.

Bingo. Close the book on this one. Nothing to see here.

It's long been known that if you're already crazy and start doing drugs, it's going to bring the crazy out. Though whoever conducted this study is clearly confusing stoner paranoia with actual psychosis.

[J.T.]

I smoke weed occasionally. I am not against smoking weed, but facts are facts. It isnt supposed to be in your system.

Are you shitting me? On the 8th day, God created weed and man has been smoking it ever since. If you believe in reincarnation, you could be on your 186th life and have been high in all 186 of them. If someone is saying weed shouldn't be in your system, they either work for the government, a drug testing company or some anti-weed group.

[spursfan09]

I'm taking this drugs and society class, and apparently its not jsut weed alone that can mess you up. It's what you do with weed, like drink alcohol. Also if you do weed often, it probably means you do other drugs and mixing all that together can really f you up.

[rAm]

First off, I question the validity of the study.

Second, even if the study is valid, in a world gone absolutely fucking mad, how dare anyone try to define insanity against the supposed norm. If people are going psychotic after years of use, maybe, just maybe it's because they're able to see the world for what it is. Taking the scales from your eyes and looking at the shit around you would make anyone a little crazy, especially those predisposed to it. Doesn't mean people should just put their heads in the sand. I mean, we are living in a full on dystopia. And I hardly think it's fair to label the people who understand that and purposely cultivate that understanding, as psychotics.

Finally, to me, not smoking weed is fucking crazy. Not hyperbolically. Literally. I think there is something clinically, mentally wrong with people who don't see the world through marijuana's lens.

whoaaaaaa braaaa put down the peace pipe

hahaha j/k I blaze chronic too much for my own good

[balli]

I smoke weed occasionally. I am not against smoking weed, but facts are facts. It isnt supposed to be in your system.

bah... We evolved along side it. For eons it was a staple to humanity, every bit as integral to our species as food, water and air.

As anecdote- it's the only food source on earth that contains every essential amino acid necessary for human survival. Which should make people realize just how special it is.

It's a blessing. Mankind's botanical partner. We are obligated on a special level to partake in ALL of it's beneficial attributes.

[rAm]

bah... We evolved along side it. For eons it was a staple to humanity, every bit as integral to our species as food, water and air.

As anecdote- it's the only food source on earth that contains every essential amino acid necessary for human survival. Which should make people realize just how special it is.

It's a blessing. Mankind's botanical partner. We are obligated on a special level to partake in ALL of it's beneficial attributes.

What do you mean by food source? Like eating the leaves straight up?

[The Gemini Method]

What do you mean by food source? Like eating the leaves straight up?

No, he means like, in brownies and stuff...

What's that? Did you hear that?

[balli]

What do you mean by food source? Like eating the leaves straight up?
Nah. The hemp heart (de-shelled cannabis seeds) is the single most nutritious food on earth. I also drink hemp milk which is insanely healthy as well- far better for you than almond or rice milk and won't turn you into a girl like soy milk does (soy elevates estrogen).

Literally, hemp seeds provide every single one of the essential proteins that humans need to survive. It's the only plant that has all 10 of them and in great quantity. It's amazing when you consider that they come from a drought resistant plant that produces an insane amount of food per acre, with a very fast growth and harvest cycle.

Cannabis could literally solve the world's hunger problem, easily, were it not that corporate interests prevent such a scenario from taking place.

[Bigzax]

it's been my experience that weed actually stifles "psychosis".

[rAm]

Cannabis could literally solve the world's hunger problem, easily, were it not that corporate interests prevent such a scenario from taking place.

It could also intensify the world's hunger problems because everyone would be all stoney and hungry.

[J.T.]

It could also intensify the world's hunger problems because everyone would be all stoney and hungry.

Here's the deal, brah. I bet balli can explain this better than me but I'll give it a shot. There are two types of cannabis out there. The first kind is the one we all know and love, marijuana. The other type is hemp. Hemp has almost no THC in it (like 1%), but instead has a chemical called CBD that's pretty much an anti-psychoactive that doesn't get you high at all. I think CBD may even block you from being able to get a THC high. The problem was that growers would hide their marijuana crops in hemp fields, so the U.S. had to make both of them illegal even though there's literally no reason for hemp to be illegal other than the plants look like weed plants. It's a pretty raw deal.

[thispego]

yeah but these are pussy australians we're talking about

[Wild Cobra]

Well no shit your putting shit in your body and brain that isn't supposed to be there.
Actually, I firmly believe marijuana is safer than alcohol.

Thing the article doesn't say, is how many of these people use other drugs as well? What if the effects were from something else?

[Wild Cobra]

I smoke weed occasionally. I am not against smoking weed, but facts are facts. It isnt supposed to be in your system.
Facts make statistics.

Statistics do not make facts.

[z0sa]

Neither of that shit is supposed to be in your system

Shut the fuck up.

You don't decide what is "supposed" to be in anyone's body, and the government shouldn't be doing that either.

[Wild Cobra]

Neither of that shit is supposed to be in your system
It's better than High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Look at all the obese people, and those getting diabetes from this shit.

[Cleveland Steamer]

cue the angry potheads to tell us how brilliant and well-balanced they are despite the fact that they been smoking since 8th grade.

[argginmanuoblifaniac]

cue the guys with nics that denote taking a shit on someone's chest to hand out the judgements on who is well balanced and who isn't.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

This isn't really news - many studies over the last 2 decades have shown that marijuana use by teenagers vastly increases incidence of a range of mental illness, and that the earlier you use it the higher the risk. OTOH, if you avoid using it when your brain is still developing (ie. up to your early 20s), the risks are vastly reduced. The same has been found for just about any drug you'd care to mention.

In other words, it's not a good idea to fuck with your brain chemistry at a time when it is still changing. Well, duh.

[Wild Cobra]

This isn't really news - many studies over the last 2 decades have shown that marijuana use by teenagers vastly increases incidence of a range of mental illness, and that the earlier you use it the higher the risk. OTOH, if you avoid using it when your brain is still developing (ie. up to your early 20s), the risks are vastly reduced. The same has been found for just about any drug you'd care to mention.

In other words, it's not a good idea to fuck with your brain chemistry at a time when it is still changing. Well, duh.
I think I will agree with you on this. We have seen several different things that fuck with the human body while it is still developing, but pretty harmless after development is complete.

A little off topic, but I think it should be criminal for girls to be given hormonal birth control. It just isn't right until they are women.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

I think I will agree with you on this. We have seen several different things that fuck with the human body while it is still developing, but pretty harmless after development is complete.

A little off topic, but I think it should be criminal for girls to be given hormonal birth control. It just isn't right until they are women.

You don't have to agree with me - go and look at the science. :lol

But yeah, messing with bodies/brains during their developmental stages often leads to severe problems later on. That applies to fetuses, babies, toddlers, kids and teenagers.

Unfortunately, teenagers generally won't listen to the warnings because at that stage of psychological development they are trying to find their way in the world with experimentation and rebellion.

[argginmanuoblifaniac]

Define mental health.

I'd say most of the visionary thinkers, inventors, artists and geniuses had what would qualify as mental illnesses under our current definitions of the word. Most of them ostracized or persecuted then, exactly as they would be now, by those that decide just what is, and what isn't, mental health. The so called normal, mentally healthy people. The productive, upstanding members of their societies.

Just because pot interferes with the programming of becoming a happy little worker drone who believes and does exactly as he's told doesn't mean it's making you mentally ill.


I hear sounds at a frequency of 13000 hertz, my 6 year old niece can hear them all the way up 20000 hertz, as far as I am concerned, she's hallucinating when she hears those noises.

To truly be able to determine just what constitutes mental health, we would have to have complete understanding of the human brain and the reality in which it operates, which we do not.

The man who had perhaps the greatest understanding of our reality, in terms of the laws that define it, Albert Einstein, is now widely believed to have had Asperger's syndrome by those with a qualified opinion, a condition that often leads to social otracization. He was reclusive and difficult understand for most people considered normal. Yet was he the mentally ill person?


You RuffNReady, I can take one look at your posting history, which has a decided slant towards hyper sensitivity. Probably much more sensitive than the typical individual. Does this make you mentally ill? Probably not. All one has to do is look at your picture and see you are obviously extremely thin and the reason for your sensitivity becomes perfectly clear. You are sensitive because your nervous system is a much larger part of your being than it is for a typical person.


Mental illnesses are prevalent enough in every society on this planet, to where they obviously are a very normal part of being human. Not abnormal at all. Since our ultimate chances of survival as a species lie in our ability to adapt, in our genetic variance, in the varying ways we can percieve reality at the individual level, I don't think there truly is any such thing as mental illness except on an extremely small scale, and if there is it is hardly the domain of the pot smokers.

I can look at schizophrenia and see a very obvious adaptive surivival principal that underwrites it, it's a means of coping with an uncopeable reality. It is a tribute to the power of the mind, not the weakness or illness of it, and the fact many schizophrenics have unusual talents to go along with their schizophrenia stands testament to this fact.

Sure there are some shizophrenics that are extremely dangerous to others, although probably not as many as there are non-schizophrenics, ditto potheads and non-potheads.

I mean it isn't the potheads starting all the wars, leading all the genocides etc.

[PuttPutt]

I must be freakin nuts then!! :lol

[Fillmoe]

whats the percentage experimenting with other drugs?

[The Reckoning]

when you have over 50% of the populace trying pot at some point of their life and that populace usually being the more "open-minded," of course there's going to be some correlation.

[mookie2001]

But deeeeed

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Define mental health.

I'd say most of the visionary thinkers, inventors, artists and geniuses had what would qualify as mental illnesses under our current definitions of the word. Most of them ostracized or persecuted then, exactly as they would be now, by those that decide just what is, and what isn't, mental health. The so called normal, mentally healthy people. The productive, upstanding members of their societies.

Just because pot interferes with the programming of becoming a happy little worker drone who believes and does exactly as he's told doesn't mean it's making you mentally ill.


I hear sounds at a frequency of 13000 hertz, my 6 year old niece can hear them all the way up 20000 hertz, as far as I am concerned, she's hallucinating when she hears those noises.

To truly be able to determine just what constitutes mental health, we would have to have complete understanding of the human brain and the reality in which it operates, which we do not.

The man who had perhaps the greatest understanding of our reality, in terms of the laws that define it, Albert Einstein, is now widely believed to have had Asperger's syndrome by those with a qualified opinion, a condition that often leads to social otracization. He was reclusive and difficult understand for most people considered normal. Yet was he the mentally ill person?


You RuffNReady, I can take one look at your posting history, which has a decided slant towards hyper sensitivity. Probably much more sensitive than the typical individual. Does this make you mentally ill? Probably not. All one has to do is look at your picture and see you are obviously extremely thin and the reason for your sensitivity becomes perfectly clear. You are sensitive because your nervous system is a much larger part of your being than it is for a typical person.


Mental illnesses are prevalent enough in every society on this planet, to where they obviously are a very normal part of being human. Not abnormal at all. Since our ultimate chances of survival as a species lie in our ability to adapt, in our genetic variance, in the varying ways we can percieve reality at the individual level, I don't think there truly is any such thing as mental illness except on an extremely small scale, and if there is it is hardly the domain of the pot smokers.

I can look at schizophrenia and see a very obvious adaptive surivival principal that underwrites it, it's a means of coping with an uncopeable reality. It is a tribute to the power of the mind, not the weakness or illness of it, and the fact many schizophrenics have unusual talents to go along with their schizophrenia stands testament to this fact.

Sure there are some shizophrenics that are extremely dangerous to others, although probably not as many as there are non-schizophrenics, ditto potheads and non-potheads.

I mean it isn't the potheads starting all the wars, leading all the genocides etc.

You've been stalking me? :lol

Actually, I'm not "extremely thin" at all. I have quite broad shoulders and weigh 103kgs. I am sensitive, but it has absolutely nothing to do with "nervous system is a much larger part of your being than it is for a typical person". I am sensitive just like my father. Research has shown that most personality traits are at least partly genetically determined.

Not trying to be insulting, but most of your post is anti-scientific drivel, and yet at the same time you refer to some of the greatest scientists of all time. I'll trust double-blind, peer-reviewed science, and that tells us that smoking pot when your brain is still developing vastly increases your likelihood of depression, bipolar, and a raft of other mental disorders.

I will agree with you that "mental illness" is over-diagnosed today, but pretending that most mental illness is simply eccentricity (which is basically what you said in your post) is insulting to all of the people who deal with destructive mental illnesses every day. I am friends with people with chronic anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and bi-polar, and they are not simply eccentric people - they struggle every day with a brain that won't work with them. I have personally suffered from depression, and it is REAL, not some eccentricity.

Oh, and although we do not entirely understand the brain, medical scanning technology has unlocked a lot of its secrets. We can now visualise the chemical processes that cause many disorders. I think you ought to catch up with the 21st century.

[ynh]

Honestly most of the people that I still talk to from H.S (I'm 29) that I use to smoke with all the time just get paranoid anymore when they smoke, myself included.

For whatever reason we all use to get the goofy high then the longer we smoked it just turned into paranoia... whether this is because we had more to lose in life if we got caught I'm not sure.. but I you couldn't pay me to smoke a joint again and I use to be a very big pot head. So I can believe what they say.

[greyforest]

I smoke weed occasionally. I am not against smoking weed, but facts are facts. It isnt supposed to be in your system.

I take aspirin occasionally. I am not against taking aspirin, but facts are facts. It isnt supposed to be in your system.