All Aboard the Crazy Train!

Smoking pot may hasten onset of mental illness

Smoking marijuana has been linked with an increased risk of mental illness, and now researchers say that when pot smokers do become mentally ill, the disease starts earlier than it would if they didn't smoke pot.
This means that serious psychiatric diseases that might not have shown up until kids were in their teens or twenties - or might never had developed at all - are starting in children as young as 12 who smoke marijuana. Reuters

Now, I have something to blame it on.

DR. MITCH EARLEYWINE: Alas, no. There are no new data – I want to emphasize that – this is a meta-analysis, which means it takes the studies that were already out there and tries to combine them mathematically to make sense of it all. What you’re not hearing in the media is that in fact, this is probably early-onset folks self-medicating.
You can imagine somebody who is experiencing some symptoms of psychosis, particularly folks with less access to medical care, or folks who are already a little bit paranoid because of the disorder and they’re unwilling to go to a physician. They hear their friends are using cannabis and enjoying it. They do it, too, they notice some mild improvements in their symptoms, they turn to it later when they have a psychotic break. What a surprise, [the researchers] say, “they smoked cannabis first, that’s the big issue.”


Full Story

"The vast majority of young people who use marijuana don't develop psychosis. And so far, no one's been able to prove that smoking marijuana actually causes psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, but the new research adds to "growing evidence" that it does, at least in some people, said Dr. Michael T. Compton at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC, who worked on the study.
A number of studies had already suggested that people develop schizophrenia at a younger age if they've been using pot - even if they weren't heavy users -- but not all researchers agreed."
The researchers did not look at whether family history of psychosis played a role in determining who was most vulnerable to marijuana's apparent early-triggering effect.
Are there some kids who are more at risk of psychosis from smoking pot than others? "I'm sure there are," Large said. Kids with a family history of psychosis, or those with some psychotic symptoms but not full-blown schizophrenia are at particular risk, he said. But also at risk are kids who are struggling, not doing well at school or living in bad situations at home.


I love how almost every 'study' that turns up evidence against marijuana has huge oversights, of course "some people" are going to develop adverse effects from smoking marijuana. Some people also develop alcoholism, some people also develop allergies to peanuts. Ignoring family histories in a study about psychotic behaviors is like ignoring whether or not people smoked cigarettes when trying to figure out who's most likely to develop lung cancer, and DURR of course kids in shitty home situations with extra stress from doing poorly at school are more likely to develop mental problems. That's like saying kids trying to cross a busy highway wearing all black at night are more likely to get hit by a truck.
Worst study I've seen in quite some time now.