Cannabis and schizophrenia
Now that cannabis is on the way to becoming legal in more and more states, let’s take a look at this:
A new study out of Denmark has found that, in the past 25 years, the number of schizophrenia cases correlated with cannabis use has increased: While only 2 percent of schizophrenia diagnoses in 1995 were associated with marijuana use, by 2010, that figure had risen to approximately 8 percent.
With the caveat that correlation is not causation, I still have no trouble believing that the potency of modern cannabis, and its widespread use, would be associated with a greater risk of schizophrenia.
“There is, unfortunately, evidence to suggest that cannabis is increasingly seen as a somewhat harmless substance. This is unfortunate, since we see links with schizophrenia, poorer cognitive function, substance use disorders,” study author and associate professor at the Copenhagen Research Center for Mental Health Carsten Hjorthøj told CNN in an email. “I think it is highly important to use both our study and other studies to highlight and emphasize that cannabis use is not harmless.”…
That cannabis users have an increased likelihood of becoming schizophrenic is well established, but researchers believe their findings show that the issue is worsening and becoming more widespread.
“Of course, our findings will have to be replicated elsewhere before firm conclusions can be drawn,” Hjorthøj said. “But I do feel fairly confident that we will see similar patterns in places where problematic use of cannabis has increased, or where the potency of cannabis has increased, since many studies suggest that high-potency cannabis is probably the driver of the association with schizophrenia.”
I don’t see that these findings will matter to cannabis users and potential cannabis users or to those spearheading the drive for decriminalization and/or legalization, though. I think that horse has left the barn.
But perhaps the term “Reefer Madness” – considered a joke because of this heavy-handed anti-marijuana propaganda film – isn’t quite so ridiculous after all?
Those kids nowadays have some heavy stuff …
I seem to recall the modern THC content of marijuana to be something on the order of 15-20 times that of what was getting passed around the circle in the 70s.
I’m not sure if the article noted it, but there’s been solid research around for decades that shows a clear link between habitual marijuana use and clinical paranoia and/or schizophrenia in teens and young adults. I wonder how much that has contributed to the spate of mental illness in our younger generations, given their increasing use of marijuana (it’s been easier to obtain than alcohol for them for a LONG time) and its increasing availability.
After all, who could possibly put together that artificial stimulation of the cannabinoid receptors in not-yet-fully-developed brains could lead to negative outcomes?
Alex Berenson (ex NYT reporter) has written a book on this.
The “medical” pot people collected signatures to put it on the NE ballot. Being me, I regularly attacked the state senators who backed it. I frequently cited Berenson’s book. But I just got mocked and ignored. The proponents also played the Reefer Madness card.
I also argued that young developing minds need to be protected, but that is ignored too.
On Twitter, I’m very harsh and direct. Big surprise.
The Nebraska Supreme Court didn’t allow the vote because the petition language violated the one subject rule. But the Left will be back. And they will win. Big Pot has Big Money.
Nebraska is becoming Pottersville; legal drugs and gambling. The sainted Dr. Tom Osborne is against both, but time has passed him (and DDB) by.
Just because moral busy bodies tell you a thing is not good for you doesn’t make it good for you.
I have been hearing that this is not really new information. A question I have is could some of the marijuana use be self medicating rather than a cause of the schizophrenia?
I am not on a particular side of this issue as I have not ever used marijuana or do I plan to.
Totally anecdotal: My one and only experience of smoking pot frequently, meaning at least several times a week over a period of several months, caused me to back off because, as I said to friends at the time, it seemed to be making me stupid. People I know who smoked frequently gave me the same impression: constantly a little spacey, a little out of it. This was 1970 and I was 21 or so. Also, I was one of those who sometimes had an anxiety reaction, totally the opposite of the effect on most people (“getting paranoid,” we called it). Clearly the effects can vary a lot.
I do hear, from acquaintances who still smoke, that the current stuff is vastly more potent. That’s generally thought of as a good thing, because “it only takes a couple of hits.” Could be trouble for some people, though.
I read Alex Berensen’s book, Tell Your Children, last summer. He cites loads of statistics and studies, beginning with diaries from doctors at British medical hospitals in India and continuing through modern studies. There seems to be no question that THC use can cause psychosis and schizophrenia.
Yes, correlation is not causation. Care needs to be determining eggs and chickens. Does cannabis use increase schizophrenia, or are people who are predisposed for schizophrenia drawn to its use?
As for young brains, well pot use is like other abuses. I recall a study that for adults who start pot as adult, their brains do change. When they stop, after a period of time the brain closely returns to what was. Adolescents have undeveloped brains. Starting pot before the brain is done developing means damage which will not be restored by cessation. The window for development will be closed.
Years ago as a teacher I had red eyes from dry eyes and contacts. My high school students accused me of pot use. I assured them I had never touched the stuff. They demanded proof. I said “Well, I’m a coward. I was afraid I would try it, like it, and be unwilling or unable to quit.” They looked at me, because they had insisted everybody they knew my age used pot. One of them said “If anyone else had told us that we would call them a liar, but coming from you, we’ll believe it.” Word got out and I was never asked about it again. Later on I realized I was about the age of their parents.
Puff, the hallucinating dragon.
Can we get a show of hands please. Anyone, anyone surprised? Anyone?
Like Kate, I read Berenson’s book Tell Your Children. It is excellent.
I gave an essay by Berenson on this subject to one of my college composition classes–the students were quite upset by the challenge to the conventional wisdom on this topic! Naturally, they had never heard of any of the information.
A member of our extended family, a young woman now in her late 20s, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in her late teens. She is a frequent pot smoker and the consensus is that it has greatly exacerbated her mental health issues.
It’s not smart to roll the dice with developing brains. Period.
But as commenters have said, Pot is Big Money. So is the dopamine hacking of mobile app social media which cannot be good for brain development either . Even Bigger Money. But a schizophrenic break is harder to miss (understatement of century).
People with schizophrenia smoke up to three times more than the general population and more than most psychiatric populations. Schizophrenia patients who smoke also have higher levels of nicotine in their bodies because they tend to extract more nicotine per cigarette than other smokers.
I was in college in the Sixties. I knew people who were heavy users, and I knew people who were infrequent users.
“do you smoke?” was a way of finding if you were on the right (left) side of The Struggle of the day.
It was kind of odd. An earlier commenter had mentioned people who seemed kind of spacey. Excellent description for those who remember it. I could not, for the life of me, recall any of my high school graduating class who was “spacey” and, as I said wrt another issue, I’d known some of them since, in some cases, as far back as the fifth grade, but was in the same school with the same hours grades 7-12..
I kind of wondered vaguely whether there were some middle-class looking subcultures who taught spacey or something. Like our Bronx folks came from loud and arrogant.
But it was always, always among those who did a lot of maryjane.
So it was, as mentioned earlier, a chicken-egg question. Do you have to be half nuts to make your head stupid on purpose? Comparing my college acquaintances to my high school class,I figured it had to be the grass.
I’ve been told that one result is permanent adolescence, although the description is less like a competent seventeen year old doing grown up stuff on a farm or in the military or running a household as a young married than resembling a spoiled ten year old.
Going to be a heck of a load on society to haul them through life by the collar.
@Mac,
It undoubtedly affects short term memory even in fully formed adult brains. Beyond my own similar observations in friends and acquaintances, I seem to recall some good research that confirms the same. I’m amazed that people seem to think that using a potent psychoactive drug will have no short or long term negative health effects. Not to mention flooding the lungs with particulates.
Anyone who dismisses legitimate evidence with silly Reefer Madness references needs a good, hard slap upside the head.
You mean Spicoli wasn’t just a baseless stereotype?
There is a reason it is called DOPE.
The cigarette thing is related to the pot thing… in both cases schizophrenics will attempt to stimulate their dopamine… and schizophrenia is a disorder with a spectrum… ie. people who are borderline and people who are way out there in another world. So… this is about borderlines… people who without pot may be considered strange or odd, but not odd enough to be diagnosed… and the fact they smoke and their parents or someone took them to the doc, had them diagnosed.. as far as i know, there is no checkbox in the stats that denote the five types of schizophrenia… AND pot if too strong and your not used to it, can make you temporarily paranoid… of which a diagnosis at that point till “stick”, and not be deemed to be only when you took too much…
Chesterton’s fence and all. The young are unteachable.
Art. I think they used to be.
Before I abandoned Instapundit, the marijuana discussion was frequently a very, very polarizing (for Instapundit) subject, turning many commenters into brief ideological enemies where no other subject did that.
Whether someone favors legalization or not, just bringing up the possible negative effects of cannabis brings out the irrational some of its proponents. While I am no fan of tobacco, one point I can give tobacco smokers is that they are generally aware of the downfalls and under no illusions about it, they just continue the habit (yes, mostly out of addiction). But they know it is unhealthy, they know it makes them and their clothing stink (even if they can’t smell the stench).
The marijuana users inhabit a rosey haze, if you will, where smoking cannabis is good for you, medicinal and all natural (TM), unlike the vile tobacco weed and the evil corporations that sell it. Where marijuana isn’t “chemically” addictive* (something I would dispute given my own experiences with habitual users, but I digress) and they can stop anytime but they just don’t want to and if you disagree, well, the Drug War and all its consequences are all your fault. It was quite polarizing and brought out the dark side in a number of regulars there. I wonder if it changed after so many of the regulars left Instapundit in the wake of Jan. 6.
For what’s worth, I loathe all smoking habits equally. Pipe, cigar, cigarette and marijuana. Hell, I can’t even tolerate the smell of patchouli incense. I know some find pipe smoke appealing even if they don’t partake but I just don’t get it. Few things will get me to discreetly get me to flee the general vicinity of someone than smoking any substance, legal or not. Vile, noxious habits.
*Even if its not chemically addictive, nearly any action can be addictive. Chewing nails, sucking thumbs, biting pencils, popping zits (a disgusting revelation to me after I discover some co-workers watching YouTube videos of such things), etc.
Fractal Rabbit:
That’s interesting. Why did a lot of people leave the Instapundit community (I assume you mean the commenting community there) after January 6? Obviously, I know what happened on January 6, but how did that affect the community there?
Neo,
In the lead up and then wake of the pandemic, Glenn Reynolds ticked quite a few regulars off by endorsing the lockdowns (Sarah Hoyt was the only co-blogger I can remember who dissented, but I could be wrong). Later, others like Ed Driscoll and David Bernstein gave some lukewarm mealy-mouthed rationalizations for Biden’s electoral “win”.
After January 6th, Bernstein wrote a piece, for Eugene Volohk I believe, that he also linked to on Instapundit.
His opinion was there was no evidence of fraud in the election, Trump was an unfit president and that while he didn’t actively encourage what happened at the Capitol, he’s still responsible for it.
That went over like a fart in church. Even Professor Reynolds initially bought into all the MSM gaslighting in regards to the protest and that further angered his readers, especially since he’s known for telling people to wait a few days before making judgements whenever some sort of crisis is nationally televised. But the Bernstein piece really put people over. I stopped reading Instapundit then and I had been somewhat on the fence since lockdowns since so many there were stuck in a perpetual “hair on fire” panic mode. It didn’t seem like Reynolds was in control anymore, even when he sounded like the old Instapundit.
My co-worker, who has been reading Instapundit longer than I have, said that a whole lot of the long time, popular commenters also left and haven’t returned and that the comments section is a pale shadow of what it used to be. There are a lot more obvious trolls, a lot more spam posts, and a lot more vitriolic arguing with an edge that wasn’t there before.
Some of the people who haven’t been seen since last January were very good writers, very prolific in the sections and very popular. Its just not the same place (his words, not mine). For the record, I kept my own screen name anonymous, even from people I know in the real world, although I don’t imagine I was one of the commenters he missed.
Fractal Rabbit:
Thanks. I go to Instapundit regularly but don’t ordinarily read the comments, so I wasn’t aware of all that. I do recall that there was a lot of alarmist stuff about COVID particularly at the outset, but I wasn’t aware of the January 6th reactions. I like to read Instapundit and often use it for ideas about articles I should look at.
Reynolds was maybe the worst on the right with Covid at the beginning (Like Jan/Feb of last year). He would provide all of these links to extremely dubious pieces from China (think dying in the street and the like).
I lost a huge amount of respect for him from that.
One other thing about Instapundit is he used to portray himself as a libertarian with lots of links to Reason and yet there he was whipping up the environment that led to the greatest destruction of civil liberties in over 150 years.
I still go to Instapundit sometimes, but increasingly feel its attitudes have been detrimental to the right. Glenn Reynolds had some excellent aphorisms, but to me a typical Instapundit page is “Look at these crazy Leftists at the University” and then the comments section filled with “Ha ha, let’s see how they far they get with their feminist studies degrees. Try that in STEM.” Yeah, those degrees get them diversity positions in HR which are often the most highly compensated after the CEO. Or just take a look at the webpage for “Transparent California” and look at the jaw-dropping salaries at the public universities and agencies.
“Rah rah military” is/was another recurring theme: “Trump has Mad-Dog Mattis” was a recurring one back in the day: “Any day that it’s sleeting he goes down to the cemetery in his bathrobe at dusk to honor his men, that’s how great a guy he is.” [I paraphrase slightly]. How’d that work out? One tag that the contributors use again and again and again is the left’s “Circular Firing Squad.” There is too much smugness and underestimation of the left’s seriousness and success, imho. Before the election it was all “Joe Biden draws a crowd of five! What a loser!”
On the other hand, my impression from the commenters (I have never followed it closely enough to have sorted out personalities or notice who is there or has left) is that they are absolutely irate at the Never or former-NeverTrumpers. It seems that any article Ed Driscoll posts has a comments section filled with people reviling him.
There is a point I want to discuss vis a vis Fractal Rabbit’s mention of the split that drug talk caused amongst the commentariat. I think it’s a clue to why we are losing so badly. But I find the thoughts haven’t quite gelled.
yes it’s been very dissapointing how every policy push exacerbated excess deaths through nursing home admissions, denial of inexpensive therapeutics, lockdowns which lead to excessive drug consumption, depression, deferral of necessary medical procedures,
how the top ranks of the military spent 20 years fighting an enemy that wants to erase western civilization, but at home they stood down, when cities were burning and cops were being picked off as in a shooting gallert most recently the national command authority, released a morroccan born terrorist abdul latif who was part of al queda’s feared tora bora brigade, but treats unarmed protesters as dangerous
terrorists,
I didn’t find the Insty coverage or links to be bad during that period. There were links to both views with most coming down on condemning the Dems and the media. Especially from Jan. 7th on as the events became clearer. Of course Insty has archives that can be looked at.
This is 1/4 to 1/10.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/2021/?w=1
Interesting to hear the thoughts on Instapundit. I’m like Neo in that I use it as a source for thinking material or what passes for it in my world. Nancy, I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts once they congeal sufficiently.
As to weed: I think that over the mid- to long-term, it’s going to end up turning into another burden on the intangible immune system of this society, already critically compromised as it is. The topic of investment in cannabis this-that-and-the-other came up with a friend of mine the other day, and I commented that I thought of the promise of wealth through cannabis stocks and ETFs and so on as essentially a big bribe. I understand there are even cannabis-focused REITs now, which is nuts.
Ask yourself this – if the amount of “marijuana-related” cases of schizophrenia have gone from 2% to 8%, where is the logical next step – how has the overall number of schizophrenia cases changed ? And what are the actual number of cases ? A common, easy way to lie with statistics is to resort to percentages. How many total cases are attributed to pot ? How many cases are there overall, and how has that number changed ? Those numbers would shine a lot of light on the actual truth of the matter and the fact they AREN’T provided almost surely means they don’t want that light because the truth doesn’t support anything nearly as dramatic as they’re trying to portray
FYI, the reason the weed discussion is polarizing is that it always relies on nonsensical studies, like this one, to make dramatic claims on the dangers of marijuana, especially the idiotic obsession with potency. You all know this also works for alcohol. You can get a shot of grain alcohol that is 98% pure, or you can drink a light beer that is barely 4% alcohol. That is the EXACT same thing.
The fact of the matter is, alcohol is a $250 billion business and it is BY FAR a greater danger to people than pot. As are cigarettes. But the irrational obsession with pot is nearly inexplicable.
And I’ll add one more thing – likely none of you have any idea what you’re talking about. And not just because you don’t partake yourself, but you don’t even likely know many, if any, people who do. Chances are, you do, you just don’t know it. Maybe one day when it is fully legal, federally, you’ll be exposed to how many well adjusted adults use it that you were completely blind to.
Folks… I think the not-so-silent-running USS Lolbertarian has just surfaced in our midst.
deadrody:
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I, for one, know many people who are regular cannabis users. Very many. For decades. And I know people who are in the cannabis business, big time, and so I know quite a bit about the financial aspects and technical aspects of legalized cannabis. And that’s just me. I am virtually certain there are other people here who would say much the same thing.
We’ve had many discussions of cannabis use on this blog, and there are also people here who use it regularly and defend its use.
Oh, and one more thing – the studies on cannabis are every bit as good as most studies on drug or alcohol use or any number of other things involving human beings. In other words, quite flawed. But for cannabis, there is certainly a lot of evidence that it’s bad for teenagers’ developing brains. However, the correlation vs. causation problem is common in a great deal of research on substances, on diet and nutrition, on disease in general, on mental illness – all sorts of things.
The studies are as good as any study these days. IE, not very. Certainly no better than any study showing the existence of climate change. “Studies” stopped having much real world value 30+ years ago. Virtually every one of them now uses non-repeatable, sketchy correlations to come to pre-determined conclusions. I have zero doubt this one is exactly the same. Again, the missing context of actual numbers is the dead give-away. Beyond which, nobody is endorsing its use by teenagers. It is illegal to buy for teenagers everywhere it has been legalized.
@Zaphod, I’m not a libertarian, I’m a realist. But, god forbid people should be allowed to ingest the substances that are more dangerous, but endorsed by the government and corporate america, IE booze and cigarettes. Nevermind the incredible undermining of the rule of law by fighting a perpetually losing “war on drugs” for 50 years putting thousands of people in jail for non-violent offenses for daring to use non-government endorsed substances. What a rousing success that has been!!!