The science has caught up with opinions, @GoldenRex. You just don’t like the answer.
The truth is, for most people, marijuana has no negative effect. But for a small subset of the population (about .25%) it can trigger a psychotic episode, which can lead to full-blown schizophrenia.
I had a psychotic break one year ago and now I’m on meds. I believe that’s called the residual phase? not sure
Have u been able to go back to school, to ur normal life?
http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/cannabis.marijuana.schizophrenia.html
Here is some more information on the subject. The more frequently you use it, the higher your odds of developing games sz are. But those odds are still not very high.
nope, I can’t go to school or work. Not yet, at least
There are drugs that make the symptoms unnoticeable, they’re called antipsychotics 
At least that’s how they work on me. Now that I don’t smoke weed anymore and I’m properly medicated, I have little to no positive symptoms
I see you’re producing an article from Cambridge,
Which is much more credible than anything else I’ve seen on the site.
.25% is very few and I think its more than possible that underlying issues are a factor for most that claim to be in that minority.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, its just that I want to keep the information balanced.
My psychosis predates my usage by years,
Smoking cannabis improved my life so much I decided to keep living.
It still helps my symptoms to this day.
This is my personal experience,
Just like the original poster stated his.
My SZA was due to chronic use of marijuana for 10 years. I stopped for 2 years and tried a little joint to see if I can get back to normal. I got so paranoid that I locked myself in my room and paced for about an hour. I thought I was going to have a heart attack if I stopped moving. I’m never touching pot again but CBD seems promising to me.
I have had two episodes that weren’t induced by marijuana and one that was.
I figure if it’s going to mess with my head that much then I shouldn’t mess with THC anymore. So I stopped smoking weed for good.
Before sz I was able to smoke just fine but now I can’t no matter how well I am doing. If I smoke, psychosis will happen. I stopped after a bad experience on christmas.
Luckily I was able to ride it out and be okay after I came down. But I was still shaken up for a few days after. That stuff just ain’t good for me anymore.
I had to let it go. Very easy decision to make. Chucked my smoking piece across the creek. It can be good for normal people but not us. But everyone is different so I can only speak for myself.
That study found a stronger effect for schizophrenia risk on cannabis use, i.e. that people who are at risk for schizophrenia are more likely to smoke cannabis, which is the counterargument to the “cannabis causes sz” proposal. And still, with a 1.04 odds ratio (vs 1.10 for the counterargument) and the soaring use of cannabis in many countries, you would expect the prevalence of sz (an uncommon disorder) to also increase at the same time. It doesn’t. Before we can conclude that cannabis can in fact cause sz in any significant proportion of the population, and not just hasten the development of a sz that would have come sooner or later anyway, we need to explain this. The most likely explanation is not that there is some other, protective factor that has been varying almost perfectly alongside the soaring cannabis use in every country in the world that has statistics on this.
We only have correlational studies. Any statistical or methodological improvement on current studies cannot change this. A correlational study can never approximate a true experiment in terms of causal explanations. If we had true experiments, the explanation that something is covarying extremely well with cannabis use and has an equal opposite effect on the likelihood of developing sz would be very plausible. But since we just have correlational studies, we need to explain the lack on an increase in the prevalence of sz before we conclude that cannabis likely causes sz. No matter how many studies we produce, a causal explanation based on correlational studies that doesn’t explain this problem is at best misguided.
Back to the OPs original question—I wonder what explains the increased risk of psychosis for cannabis users?
THC brings on (NOT ALWAYS BUT FOR MANY!) psychotomimetic (mimics psychotic symptoms) symptoms such as paranoia, racing thoughts, hallucinations, etc. I smoked cannabis for 12 years, from one hitters all the way to gravity bongs and what have you. Things that can trigger sch and sad are living in an urbanized environment, extreme stress, cannabis use, amphetamine use, cocaine use, genetic predisposition, LSD use; this list is not including everything scientifically known to cause this devastating disorder.
I have been clean from illicit drugs for 6 months and counting; taking Latuda and Lithium Carbonate, Multivitamins, Nacetylcysteine, and drink a few glassses of coffee per day. I have NEVER FELT THIS GREAT (Not hypomanic or manic), never felt this normal and like myself in my entire life.
Bottom line is; THC is pro-psychotic and CBD is antipsychotic in its properties.
THC is not as safe as we were starting to believe unfortunately, plus with 25-35% THC strains of cannabis today, the strength of cannabis is outstandingly high now and when i smoked some “cookies” one day, 4 hits on a joint, I thought a freight train was going through my heart and head… Hard hitting sativa to say the least haha.
If being treated for sch and sad, do NOT smoke cannabis or cigarettes; get counseling, second generation antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and go through CBT.
Good luck!
I’d say the most likely culprits as of now are genes that code both for sz risk and cannabis use, and self-medication of prodromal symptoms.
Brains are literally known to heal themselves. Trauma is harder to heal. Your MJ experience didn’t trigger your disease you were always meant to get it it’s just that you associate the onset with MJ because that just happened to be the start. I was always meant to get this disease. I can kinda prove it. Rates of SZ have never gone up above 1.5% of the population. We would have seen it gone up more with the 1970 free love and drug movement. Drugs don’t cause it it’s just people who use drugs are more likely to get it.
1)Does MJ cause sz in people who otherwise are not susceptible to sz ?
Then in terms of minimising the development of psychosis through the use of MJ we really need to know the factors that place a person at high risk and of transitioning from a high risk to the development of sz.
Is there an increase of people going from a high risk but not schizophrenic group to actually having schizophrenia in those who use MJ?
It looks like it. But we have no firm understanding of what causes this transitioning.
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