Pot and Schizophrenia ?

[UndertheOcean]

Is there really a link , or is it just another scare tactic ?

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I've been smoking it for 42 years,

and I still feel fairly sane. Probably more sane than I would have been without it, given what we've had to endure over the past 42 years.

[Confusious]

12. A your friend in your head thinks so Too~

Joke.

I'm for pot being legalized. I never heard of scitz and pot.

[Blue_In_AK]

15. Yes.

When I said "we," I meant me and the little friend in my head. :rofl:

[rcrush]

2. Someone said it causes Schizophrenia?

I would say Correlation is NOT causation.


Anyways I think smoking pot has kept me from putting a gun in mouth at least a few times in my life.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. I've been thinking about smoking it for decades, but since we have

mandatory drug testing.... and the voices tell me not to as well.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I have seen cases in which pot precipitated psychotic episodes.

Not caused, precipitated. The psychotic potential was already there, but the pot seemed to help it reveal itself a little sooner and maybe a little more floridly than would have otherwise been the case. But the contribution of the pot was of relatively short duration, maybe 2 or 3 days.

And I don't see the stuff I'm mentioning here as a good reason to oppose legalization.

[Mabus]

23. My stepdaughter is bipolar with psychotic episodes and she cannot smoke pot

because it does seem to help set off her impending psychotic episodes. Typically she goes through a maniac phase before hitting the psychotic stage. One time her friends thought that if she smoked a joint that it might help calm her down. She didn't tell them beforehand that she was bipolar (and not taking her meds) nor did she tell them that she had tried pot before and it seemed to help set off her psychotic episodes quicker. We found out what happened after we tracked her down and found out she had been hospitalized in a psych unit for creating a disturbance at a bus station and topping it off by hitting a cop.

fwiw, I'm a long time pot smoker who thinks it should be legalized.

[MrSlayer]

5. Absolute nonsense.

I know hundreds of people who have smoked for decades, none of them are schizos. It's just more ridiculous propaganda put out by those who would be financially hurt by the legalization of marijuana.

[Mythsaje]

6. I've been around it my whole life and I've never known a

Schizophrenic. I've known thousands of stoners.

I doubt it.

[angstlessk]

7. you know the real sad truth is...were it not for all the insane mis-information

regarding pot...you would not have to ask that question, now would you? (Reefer Madness, anyone?)

[Juche]

8. There is a link, it increases risk about 500%

http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/cannabis.marijuana.schizophrenia.html

Overview: Use of street drugs (including LSD,methamphetamine,marijuana/hash/cannabis) have been linked with significantly increased probability of developing schizophrenia. This link has been documented in over 30 different scientific studies (studies done mostly in the UK, Australia and Sweden) over the past 20 years. In one example, a study interviewed 50,000 members of the Swedish Army about their drug consumption and followed up with them later in life. Those who were heavy consumers of cannabis at age 18 were over 600% more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia over the next 15 years than those did not take it. (see diagram below). Experts estimate that between 8% and 13% of all schizophrenia cases are linked to marijuna / cannabis use during teen years.



Professor Robin Murray (London Institute of Psychiatry) has recently (2005) completed a 15-year study of more than 750 adolescents in conjunction with colleagues at King's College London and the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Overall people were 4.5 times more likely to be schizophrenic at 26 if they were regular cannabis smokers at 15, compared to 1.65 times for those who did not report regular use until age 18.










-----------------


However that increased risk is for people prone to the illness (as far as I know). If you aren't prone to SZ then smoking pot probably won't make a difference. And since SZ only affects 1% of the public, even a 500% increase isn't a guarantee of anything.

Taking aspirin while pregnant may increase your risk of your kid having SZ by 500% too. So none of this is an argument in favor of banning marijuana or aspirin. But yeah, there seems to be a risk.


If you feel you are at risk of getting schizophrenia, there are tons of risk factors that increase or decrease your chances of getting it. So do more of the stuff that cuts your risk, and less of the stuff that increases it.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention.htm

Table of Contents - Schizophrenia Prevention tactics:

* Information for Teens: How to Lower Your Risk for Schizophrenia
o Don't use street drugs, and moderate any use of alcohol
o Make an ongoing effort to develop your social skills as much as you can
o Avoid social isolation
o Make an ongoing effort to maintain friendships with adults
o Make an extra effort to learn positive perspectives on the world
o Make extra effort to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety
o Seek Help from Qualified Psychologists and Psychiatrists if you have problems coping

* Information for Parents: How to Lower Your Child's Risk for Schizophrenia

o Relationship & Family Environment Factors
+ Build a relationship, or marry, a person with whom you can have a stable, loving and (mostly) low-stress relationship
+ Make an extra effort to resolve differences. Learn conflict resolution skills

o Pre-Pregnancy Planning for Children's Mental Health
+ Begin prenatal planning at least three months prior to pregnancy
+ Plan your pregnancy; Have a child when you want one, and don't have a child if you don't want one
+ Take a multivitamin daily for 1 to 3 months prior to conception
+ Make sure that any sexually transmitted diseases (eg. Herpes, Chlamydia, etc.) have been treated by a medical professional prior to pregnancy
+ Make an extra effort to be at a healthy weight prior to pregnancy
+ Make extra efforts to avoid alcohol and lead exposure prior to, and during Pregnancy
+ Husbands should try to plan to have children when they are younger, rather than older
+ Consider having a longer (greater than 27 months) interval between pregnancies, to maximize mental health of children

o Stress and Pregnancy; Lower Stress Results in Healthier Brain Development
+ Learn how to Maintain Lower Levels of Physical, Social and Emotional Stress & Anxiety (worry) Immediately before, and during pregnancy
+ How to Lower Stress, Anxiety, Worry and Depression Before Pregnancy

o Pregnancy Activites for Children's Mental Health
+ During pregnancy be sure to get enough of the key vitamins for the child's healthy brain development
+ Do not smoke cigarettes or use other tobacco products during pregnancy
+ Avoid all medications (unless doctor prescribed) during the pregnancy
+ Avoid Dry Cleaning chemicals during the pregnancy (and keep young children away from recently dry cleaned clothes)
+ It may be good for the baby's brain for the mother to continue moderate exercise after start of pregnancy
+ Test for risk of RH blood incompatibility between mother and child immediately after birth
+ Consider taking extra precautions to avoid getting the flu, during flu season
+ Eat a healthy diet with a lot of vegetables and the recommended amount of fish with omega 3 fatty acids
+ Consider taking extra precautions to minimize risk of baby delivery complications
+ Consider minimizing your exposure to cats during your pregnancy
+ After Birth - Make sure the mental health of the mother is good
+ Breast feed the baby for at least 6 months, unless otherwise directed by a doctor
+ Consider vitamin D supplementation during the first year of life for baby boys
+ Consider having, and raising, your child outside of an urban environment

o Childhood Mental Health Maximizing Activities
+ Learn as much as you can about the important new lessons that psychology and neuroscience research is revealing about how to raise children for maximum mental health
+ During the first year of life, the baby should be held by a caring human for 4 hours or more a day
+ Try to moderate the stress that children experience and coach them on how to most effectively and positively deal with the stress they do experience
+ Parents should minimize"Expressed Emotion" (yelling, shouting, arguing, or over-involvement & controlling behavior)
+ Learn from the latest research into child development and practice sensitive, nurturing, low-stress parenting
+ Teach your children a positive, optimistic view on life and life's events
+ Encourage the development of good social skills for your children
+ A family may want to work on providing an enriched educational, nutritional and social environment for their children
+ If the family emmigrates to a different country, the family should make extra efforts to make sure that the child integrates well in the new environment and makes strong friendships
+ Try to minimize risk of traumatic events in a child's life
+ Encourage the development of good "reality testing" skills
+ Encourage good head and brain safety practices in children
+ Get early screening and treatment for mental health problems in children

[bobburgster]

13. Hmmmm, skeptical about this....

my guess is those who chose to smoke have a higher chance of having a predisposition to psychiatric issues. I did not see how they eliminated in the study, therefore it would be skewed.

[havocmom]

18. people who know on a deep, internal, often subconscious level, they aren't 'right in head'

often self medicate. On some level, many know when something is wrong or missing and they often hunt down substitutes. Seems likely some would go for pot. Lord knows more than enough of them go for alcohol. Many of us reach for chocolate.

[aquart]

25. Agree. The first thing I thought was "self-medicating."

[Warren Stupidity]

14. The excerpt shows that schizophrenics are likely to self medicate

with pot and other drugs, but does not show any evidence that pot causes schizophrenia. So as usual 'correlation' is turned into 'causation' in order to scare us and justify criminalization.

[Juche]

16. There are several dozen studies on that website on cannabis & schizophrenia

http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/cannabis.marijuana.schizophrenia.html#support

25% of cannabis users faces a tenfold higher risk of mental illness

Jenny Hope, the medical correspondent in the British Newspaper "The Daily Mail", reported today on research which suggests that 1 in 4 cannabis users faces a tenfold higher risk of mental illness due to their genetic profile.

The researchers, led by Professor Avshalom Caspi of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, will publish their study in the journal Biological Psychiatry. They investigated whether susceptibility to psychosis triggered by cannabis could be linked with a particular gene, known as COMT, which makes people more prone to schizophrenia. COMT is involved in the breakdown of dopamine in the brain, and has two variants, or alleles, called val and met. The val allele has been linked with the risk of schizophrenia.

Research showed that those with two forms of the val allele were 10.9 times more likely to develop psychosis following cannabis use.


-------------------

Marijuana Doubles Risk of Schizophrenia
Read more... Schizophrenia Causes, Risk Factors & Prevention

The BBC News reported today on a new research study out of New Zealand that highlights the greatly increased risk of mental illness associated with Marijuana use.

"Smoking cannabis virtually doubles the risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, researchers say. The New Zealand scientists said their study suggested this was probably due to chemical changes in the brain which resulted from smoking the drug.

The study, published in the journal Addiction, followed over 1,000 people born in 1977 for 25 years."

The researchers stated that "The weight of the evidence clearly suggests that the use of cannabis may alter underlying brain chemistry and precipitate the onset of psychosis ... in vulnerable individuals," the University of Otago scientists reported in the journal, Addiction.

-----------------------

Cannabis as a risk factor for psychosis: systematic review.

Semple DM, McIntosh AM, Lawrie SM.

Division of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. [e-mail]

Various lines of evidence suggest an association between cannabis and psychosis. Five years ago, the only significant case-control study addressing this question was the Swedish Conscript Cohort. Within the last few years, other studies have emerged, allowing the evidence for cannabis as a risk factor to be more systematically reviewed and assessed. Using specific search criteria on Embase, PsychINFO and Medline, all studies examining cannabis as an independent risk factor for schizophrenia, psychosis or psychotic symptoms, published between January 1966 and January 2004, were examined. Additional studies were also reviewed from references found in retrieved articles, reviews, and a cited reference search (ISI-Web of Science). Studies selected for meta-analysis included: (i) case-control studies where exposure to cannabis preceded the onset of schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like psychosis and (ii) cohort studies of healthy individuals recruited before the median age of illness onset, with cannabis exposure determined prospectively and blind to eventual diagnosis. Studies of psychotic symptoms were also tabulated for further discussion. Eleven studies were identified examining the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis. Seven were included in the meta-analysis, with a derived odds ratio (fixed effects) of 2-9 (95 % confidence interval = 2.4-3.6). No evidence of publication bias or heterogeneity was found. Early use of cannabis did appear to increase the risk of psychosis. For psychotic symptoms, a dose-related effect of cannabis use was seen, with vulnerable groups including individuals who used cannabis during adolescence, those who had previously experienced psychotic symptoms, and those at high genetic risk of developing schizophrenia. In conclusion, the available evidence supports the hypothesis that cannabis is an independent risk factor, both for psychosis and the development of psychotic symptoms. Addressing cannabis use, particularly in vulnerable populations, is likely to have beneficial effects on psychiatric morbidity.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. It is disingenuous bullshit to claim pot causes schizophrenia

Given that currently there is no scientific agreement on the cause(s) of schizophrenia, to make deliberately vague claims that smoking pot causes schizophrenia is massively dishonest and is typical of drug war scare tactics.

Worse, studies that have attempted to find causality have failed to do so. See the wiki article:

Cannabis

Main article: Effects of cannabis

There is some evidence that cannabis use can contribute to schizophrenia. Some studies suggest that cannabis is neither a sufficient nor necessary factor in developing schizophrenia, but that cannabis may significantly increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and may be, among other things, a significant causal factor. Nevertheless, some previous research in this area has been criticised as it has often not been clear whether cannabis use is a cause or effect of schizophrenia. To address this issue, a recent review of studies from which a causal contribution to schizophrenia can be assessed has suggested that cannabis statistically doubles the risk of developing schizophrenia on the individual level, and may, assuming a causal relationship, be responsible for up to 8% of cases in the population.<68>

An older longitudinal study, published in 1987, suggested six-fold increase of schizophrenia risks for high consumers of cannabis (use on more than fifty occasions) in Sweden.<69>

Despite increases in cannabis consumption in the 1960s and 1970s in western society, rates of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia remained relatively stable. Sweden and Japan, where self-reported marijuana use is very low, do not have lower rates of psychosis than the U.S. and Canada do.<70> For the theory of true causality to be correct, other factors which are thought to contribute to schizophrenia would have to have converged almost flawlessly to mask the effect of increased cannabis usage.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_schizophrenia

That last paragraph is key. Increased pot use starting in the 60's did not correlate with increased rates of schizophrenia. Longitudinal correlation can't be shown. Comparative analysis with lower pot use cohorts and higher pot use cohorts also fails to show a correlation with schizophrenia rates.


The simplest explanation for the data regarding pot use and risk of schizophrenia is that people who are at risk for developing schizophrenia also tend to self medicate with various recreational drugs, including pot. They also smoke a lot of tobacco. The drug warlords of the PIC fail to mention that inconvenient fact.

[Juche]

27. Did you even read the articles?

One talks about the COMT gene and how marijuana could manipulate it's expression. That has nothing to do with self medicating.

And there are scientific consensus on some of the causes of schizophrenia, at least certain risk factors (malnutrition, social isolation, stress, pollution, certain chemicals, etc). And pot seems to be (along with a dozen other things) a risk factor. However because SZ only affects 1% of the population, and only a small % of the public uses pot regularly, and pot only increases the odds that some peopel will be more likely to get SZ of course there is no epidemic of SZ.

If you guys want to believe pot is not linked to schizophrenia because you fear it will be used as an excuse to clamp down, be my guest. But you are just performing mental gymnastics at this point to obtain that belief.

[ananda]

9. Really..

I don't think so.

And it's a good idea to think about
what schizophrenia means... if there
is such a thing...

You should watch Adam Curtis's documentary
film, The Trap. It really gets you
thinking about schizophrenia and mental
illness in a whole new way.

[Juche]

10. Thanks

I hadn't heard of that one, but it sounds interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)

[jaysunb]

11. I've smoked for 50+ years

and I seem to be ok. Of course, I know people who don't and shouldn't smoke ( or anything else for that matter ) because they have underlying issues that are exacerbated by mind altering substances.

[Lint Head]

17. I think all schizophrenics probably used aspirin at one time in their lives.

Legalize pot now!

[Juche]

19. make it illegal to live in urban areas and not have friends

Social isolation and urban living are both risk factors. utopia 1; schizophrenia 0

[sallylou666]

20. Genetic component

Schizophrenia has a genetic component and always manifests during the teenage years or early adulthood. It's possible that people with genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia are more likely to smoke pot than other people without this genetic vulnerability.

[Vinnie From Indy]

21. Statistics and those that use them are sometimes hilarious

If I smoke some Buddha weed, I am 782% more likely to eat an extra slice of pepperoni pizza.
If you bogart that joint more than twice, I am 200% more likely to call you Humphrey.

C'mon! Life is fragile and danger lurks behind everything. A life lived in fear is half lived.

[UndertheOcean]

22. I totally agree with this sentiment

[Juche]

24. That doesn't change anything

The question was "is there a link between pot and schizophrenia". The answer is yes. But there is also a link between stress and schizophrenia. However, nobody says we should force people who want to work high paying, high stress jobs to adopt lower paying, lower stress jobs. Banning marijuana is not fair either. Tons of things contribute to problems like schizophrenia. Living in an urban area (due to pollution and stress) or being born in winter (probably because of a lack of vitamin D) increases your risk too. Suffice it to say, if it is something a person is worried about (ie they have a genetic history of it) and they want to control their risk factors, then stay away from pot (and stress, and isolation, and pollution, and malnutrition and a dozen other things). If they are not genetically prone to it, then I wouldn't worry about it.