How Dangerous is Marijuana, Really?

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The Marshall Project: This first question is for all of you. Let’s start with the core question Alex set out to answer in reporting his book: What do we know about the connection between marijuana and mental illness? What would you say is established medical science, and what is still unresolved?

Alex Berenson: Okay, I’ll jump in. Marijuana causes psychosis. This is an established medical fact, not open to debate. It can cause temporary psychotic episodes even in healthy people. It worsens the course of schizophrenia and provokes severe relapses in people with schizophrenia whose disorder was controlled.

The mainstream literature and the physician-scientists who have done the most work on the issue also believe it is responsible for some cases of schizophrenia that otherwise would not have occurred—that is to say, that it can cause schizophrenia, especially when used regularly to heavily by adolescents. The advocacy community focuses on that part of the issue and overstates the uncertainties surrounding it, which after 30 years of research are relatively minor, and probably relate more to risk ratios than anything else. But in doing so, advocates elide an equally significant issue. Even if marijuana did not produce a single de novo case of schizophrenia, its use frequently causes temporary episodes of psychosis. To say otherwise is to ignore the reality of emergency rooms all over the United States.

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What research does indicate is that some people with certain genetic markers for schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders may be more likely to use marijuana and other drugs. There is also research to suggest that individuals with certain markers may be more likely to experience psychosis or develop psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, due to substance use.

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Thank you. That helps me understand more.

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How do you even falsify the theory that marijuana can’t cause schizophrenia, only worsen an existing predisposition? It seems fallacious.

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I wouldn’t smoke weed but I would be open to trying CBD based medication.

THC is not our friend.

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When I heavily smoked marijuana years ago, it made feel unclear in the head, it made me act of kind of dumb, and it gave me anxiety. I don’t like it.

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I can’t wait to smoke weed once it’s legal in Illinois.

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i don’t believe the article…I do it and I feel relieved from my anxiety.

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Marijuana makes me psychotic. No question about it.

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I haven’t used it for 26 years and I still crave it daily. Find it funny whenever I’m told it’s not addictive.

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I use it with absolutely zero ill effects. It relieves my anxiety and elevates my mood, without triggering any sort of psychotic symptoms. Simply put, it makes me feel good. I know that’s not true for everyone who has a psychotic illness, but let’s not totally demonize it, ffs. :roll_eyes:

I only smoke it about once a month now, but there have been times I would smoke it six or seven times/day, every day, with no ill effects. In fact, I was smoking it that heavily during a near-total remission of symptoms.

Whatever.

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I am afraid to try it again. I had really disabling paranoia. My wife smokes. I won’t touch the stuff.

I haven’t done it since college. Spent more than 20 years in the military so I couldn’t do it and I am 48 and now schizophrenic so it’s been a while since I have tried it.

It isn’t legal where I live. If it were legal medically at least I might try it. But doing illegal drugs isn’t worth the risk to me. I take enough prescribed meds.

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Honest question,

Not trying to be a smartass.

If weed causes so many mental health issues why does it not come with warning labels?

I live in a state where medical (and recreational) is legal and I’ve never seen such label.

However,

All my other medications come with a literal piece of paper, three sheets long, that warn me of everything including but not limited to death.

Surely someone would tell me if I was being prescribed this dangerous medication.

Its also worth mentioning what your individual doctor thinks about cannabis use,

My doctor doesn’t oppose and even encouraged its use instead of benzos.

Anyway,

Why doesn’t this prescription medication come with a “could make you lose your absolute ■■■■” label?

(I understand why it wouldn’t coming off the street, I’m talking about those of us with a medical card)

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Because it’s not a medication. It’s classified as an herb/supplement, which means it doesn’t need to include warnings.

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But its prescribed by a doctor for specific conditions.

Even my vitamins come with warnings.

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Some people can take it and it helps them. some people take it and it harms them.

its up to you if you want to risk it. you gotta weigh what you feel is worth trying.

just like we risk it with the regular pharmaceuticals, we trust it will help.

but then theres people who just like to abuse marijuana, or pharmaceuticals to get high.

for me , marijuana either made me hallucinate, or dissociate, screwed with all my senses. and a couple times i just laughed my ass off. but it never made me feel relaxed. I also had minimal anxiety before smoking marijuana.

when i was 19 was when I hallucinated big time off it, then i was in a weird hallucinatory haze, and was anxious because of it, for almost 1 year, then i started getting super drunk on weekends and it seemed to clear up or mask it.

2 years after that i had a big episode. and here i am now.

oh also.

I like turtles.

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Yes, but do you smoke them or snort them?

(Sorry, I’m just curious.)

:blush:

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Vaping. Strictly Vaping
nestle013-3

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The Force is strong with this one.

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In my experience? Very.

If it works good and helps some schizophrenics I have no problem with that. I do wonder for people who smoke it, how much of their money goes to marijuana each month and if they can afford it.

I just remember when I was doing drugs and drinking that I could handle any other drug I tried, but smoking pot, even just one joint or one bowlful could set off my symptoms to the nth degree. It seriously, seriously screwed me up.

I just wonder if some pot smokers are like me when I was smoking it. I was a daily smoker for my last two years of high school, usually a few times a day. And 90% of the time it was fun and it was great to get stoned and put on a Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd record in my friends room (with his mom watching TV in the living room) and smoke a few bowls in my friends bong and drink Miller beer. That was our entertainment on most weekends.

After I got diagnosed I got a hold of some really potent weed and smoked one joint and it fantastically made me paranoid and out of my mind. I was twenty years old and at that point it wasn’t a choice to smoke it anymore. I had to quit. My mind couldn’t take it.

That was 1981.

In 1986 I picked it up again. And I still couldn’t handle it. I could handle it a little bit better than when I was 20 but it wasn’t fun, I did not enjoy it. But I kept smoking it. The problem was that I was chasing that “first high”. I kept smoking it because I was after that good feeling I got when I was in high school. But things had changed and that feeling would not come back. I kept smoking it and freaking out on it because I always told myself, “Well, next time will be better.” But it never was.
I quit all drugs and drinking anyways in 1990 so the point is moot in my case.

Like I said, I don’t care if an adult smokes pot if he can handle it, it’s his/her choice. I do think it’s bad when kids with schizophrenia smoke it. But when I was 17 no one on the planet could have got me to quit. But I look back on how my grades plummeted my last two years in high school, and how much money I always spent on pot, and how I got caught multiple times by cops smoking it and had to go to court and I wish someone had stopped me. I just don’t think a minor with schizophrenia should be smoking it.

The smartest, best behaved, coolest, responsible kid who smokes it is not mature enough to make certain decisions no matter how many times he’s been around the block, no matter how many girlfriends/ boyfriends she/ he’s had, or how popular he is. The brain just ain’t ready for pot at that age.

Anyways, I tried to make the point that if people are like I was in my twenties with schizophrenia, , they keep smoking it even though they know from experience it will mess them up. Maybe they think it’s cool, or it’s peer pressure, or they think next time will be different. Or it’s 90% bad for them they will still cling to that small 10% of the time it makes them feel a little good. I think a lot of smokers fool themselves this way and it’s unfortunate.

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you gotta watch atleast past :20 seconds lol

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