Have you ever wondered if smoking cannabis is a healthy alternative to drinking alcohol or using a pharmaceutical drug?
Wouldn’t that be the easy answer. Getting access to cannabis is easier than ever, with 24 states as of February 2024, legalizing the use of marijuana. Another fourteen states allow cannabis for medical use. And it is now, with this generation and all of the legalization that there is a clear link between cannabis and psychosis.
According to this article by the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), in 2022, 30% of twelfth graders reported using cannabis in the past year, and 6.3% used cannabis daily in the past thirty days.
The problem is, more and more evidence is showing that there is a link between cannabis and psychosis. Especially in young people, cannibis use might literally, be messing with your mind; causing permanent effects, and causing short-term and long-term psychosis.
What is Psychosis?
Psychosis is a cluster of symptoms causing delusion, hallucinations, incoherent behavior, disorganized thoughts and disorganized speech. Psychosis is part of the symptoms associated with such mental health issues such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression; to name a few.
Some signs of cannabis psychosis:
- Seeing things that aren’t there, like shadowy figures or faces in the dark.
- Hearing voices or commands that no one else can hear.
- Believing that people are plotting against them.
- Believing they have special powers.
- Believing that they are famous.
- Speaking in ways that are hard to understand.
- Severe difficulty concentrating and appearing scattered.
- Extreme withdraw from family and friends.
- Talking to themselves in public.
- Wearing odd clothing, like too many layers, or inappropriate for the temperature.
- Showing extremes in emotion such as no emotion at all, or intense fear, sadness or anger.
- Sleeping too much or too little.
- Extremes in appetite.
How cannabis affects the brain.
In adolescents under the age of sixteen, the brain is still developing, so this is a particularly risky time to use cannabis. Studies have shown that use of cannabis before this age can cause up to eleven times higher risk of developing symptoms of psychosis than teens who have not used the substance.
There is still research to be done to find out the amount of cannabis use that can lead to psychosis, and who is more at risk however the studies are coming in quickly to show a clear pattern between young minds, cannibis and psychosis.
Cannabis refers to the whole marijuana plant and all of its parts. The particular chemical in marijuana that causes psychosis is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC). This is also the part of the plant that causes a heightened sense of euphoria, that which many people search for when choosing to use the drug.
The THC content of today’s marijuana is much higher than the marijuana teens may have been exposed to in past generations. According to the National Institute of Health, the THC content in marijuana plants seized by the DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration), went from almost 4% in 1995, to over 15% in 2021.
Although we’ve had cannibis in prior generations, the current state of cannibis is a different more potent and scientifically modified drug.
Why is there the sense of emergency around cannabis and psychosis?
You only have one brain. Once symptoms of psychosis begin, it may not be possible to reverse them. Of course, not every person who uses cannabis will develop symptoms of psychosis, but there is no definitive way to tell who will develop psychosis and who won’t.
You are more at risk if you have a family history of a mental disorder, or if you yourself have a mental disorder. You are also more at risk of developing psychosis if you develop an addiction to cannabis.
A new study from Canada, Age-dependent association of cannabis use with risk of psychotic disorder published in the Psychological Medicine estimates that teens using cannabis are eleven times higher risk of developing a psychotic disorder compared to teens not using cannabis.
This finding shows the association between cannabis and psychotic disorders may be stronger than indicated by previous research of which relied on older data, and older cannabis; when cannabis was less potent than today.
For context, the average THC potency of cannabis in Canada has increased from around one per cent in 1980 to twenty per cent in 2018. And as stated, it’s the THC that is responsible for producing the psychosis.
Making this a public health concern.
Health leaders and schools need to step up and not only get better informed themselves, but inform the public better. It is a myth that cannibis is always “medicinal”, or the healthy alternative.
There are organizations such as One Chance to Grow up and Neuroscience News that are getting the updated information out there, however it’s far from being mainstream knowledge yet.
If you have concerns about your child and cannibis, a therapeutic consultant may be able to help. Schedule a no-cost discovery call here.
Sources:
National Institute on Drug Abuse Teen Brochure
Cambridge University: Age Dependent Association of Cannabis Use With Risk of Psychotic Disorder
PEW Research Center: Most Americans Now Live in a Legal Marijuana State
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Photo credit, Lekcej
