Can I Never Smoke Weed Again After Psychosis

High-end marijuana buds on sale at a Denver dispensary. Craig F. Walker/Denver Post via Getty Images hibernate caption

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Craig F. Walker/Denver Post via Getty Images

High-end marijuana buds on sale at a Denver clinic.

Craig F. Walker/Denver Post via Getty Images

In the "American Sniper" murder trial, prosecutors successfully countered Eddie Ray Routh'south plea of not guilty by reason of insanity past maxim that he but seemed psychotic because he was loftier. But scientists continue to fence over whether marijuana-induced psychosis is always short-lived or if at that place'south a deeper connexion at play.

Nobody would question that marijuana can make some people temporarily experience psychotic symptoms, says Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Establish for Drug Corruption at the National Institutes for Health. "But can cannabis by itself trigger the schizophrenic illness? That's not so articulate," she says.

Volkow says it's important to make that distinction. Drugs like marijuana or methamphetamine can make someone experience symptoms like paranoia, hostility and disorganized thinking. Only that's very dissimilar from a chronic, persistent psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. "Yous can take a psychotic episode from the use of marijuana without it turning into schizophrenia," Volkow says. "It's very distressing, only you'll go out of it."

All the same, some researchers are convinced that marijuana contributes to the evolution of schizophrenia. There have been 9 studies following hundreds to thousands of people for decades looking for a connection between marijuana use and psychosis.

All merely i of these studies suggest that marijuana use is associated with schizophrenia. Sir Robin Murray, a psychiatrist at King's College in London, says that evidence changed his mind about weed. "Even I, xx years ago, used to tell patients that cannabis is safe. It'southward just after y'all see all the patients that go psychotic that you realize – it'south not and then prophylactic."

But NIH's Volkow says that these studies don't show that marijuana employ causes the schizophrenia; they only testify that people with schizophrenia are more likely to likewise be weed smokers.

She says information technology could even so be the other style around – that psychosis makes people desire to smoke pot rather than the pot making people psychotic. "People who have an emerging schizophrenic disorder may be consuming marijuana," she says, "trying to self-medicate because they simply don't feel correct."

There are other issues with these studies as well. Cannabis smokers as well are more than likely to use other drugs, including ones that are known to induce brief psychotic episodes. At least one other written report found that people with schizophrenia were more probable to accept a drug habit in general. That makes it difficult to say if the people in these experiments adult schizophrenia because they were smoking weed or considering of other factors.

"But what is also clear, if you do have a vulnerability to schizophrenia and you smoke [cannabis]," Volkow says, "it'south likely to trigger an episode. It'southward probable to advance the [illness]." She says when people with sure risky genes associated with psychosis smoke, the take a chance of developing schizophrenia goes up sixfold, according to a 2005 study. Only for someone without those genes, Volkow says the testify suggests "you tin fume all the marijuana yous want and it volition make no difference any."

If marijuana abuse is causing schizophrenia, the damage is probably being done during people's early years, according to Krista Lisdahl, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. For most, psychotic disorders develop in the late teens while the brain is still developing. "Afterward 25 or 30, when the brain is done with its major neurodevelopment," Lisdahl says, most people are unlikely to develop schizophrenia and smoking probably won't alter that. On the other mitt, she says, most people including her who've studied cannabis and mental health accept seen that the earlier someone starts smoking, the more likely information technology is they'll develop a disorder in general.

"It does await similar there is an increased run a risk for schizophrenia" from smoking weed overall, Lisdahl says. But she also agrees with Volkow. "Some experts believe that [cannabis] might induce schizophrenia in someone who wasn't vulnerable, merely in my opinion that hasn't really been proven."

One thing to note, Lisdahl says, is that more people smoke cannabis today than always in history. If the connexion between weed and schizophrenia is solid, then the number of people with schizophrenia should also be going up. Only it hasn't. The fraction of people who have the disorder all the same hovers at effectually ane per centum.

But public wellness officials say they have seen an increase in the number of blazed people showing upward to the emergency room in the grip of a fleeting psychotic episode. Volkow says there'south been a "very dramatic increase ... that may accept to exercise with a much more than potent marijuana." Black market, medical and recreational marijuana have all been steadily increasing their THC content over the past decade, and according to national emergency department data, visits involving cannabis increased 52 percent from 2004 to 2011.

Murray says that only strengthens the case that cannabis increases the risk for schizophrenia. A recent report he published in The Lancet suggests that abusing marijuana with effectually fifteen percent THC content, which is mutual amongst growers today, could quintuple the chance for schizophrenia. "Nosotros think about 5 per centum of people will go psychotic instead of ane pct. That [still] means over xc per centum of people who smoke the high-dominance will be OK," he says.

If all this is true, then the irony of the "American Sniper" case is that both sides may have been right. Information technology's possible that Eddie Ray Routh could accept experienced a brief psychotic episode from smoking weed that day. Simply if he has genetic vulnerabilities toward schizophrenia, then years of cannabis abuse could take triggered the full-blown psychological disorder that the defense force said he has. And while the science of marijuana and madness remains unsettled, both scenarios appear quite plausible.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/06/390143641/pot-can-trigger-psychotic-symptoms-for-some-but-do-the-effects-last

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