Risk of Psychosis From Cannabis Use Lower Than Previously Thought

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I read the article "Risk of Psychosis From Cannabis Use Lower Than Previously Thought" by Samantha Martin from the University of York. http://neurosciencenews.com/cannabis-use-psychosis-6472/

Although there is a risk of developing psychosis from cannabis use, the risk is small compared to the number of total cannabis users. However, research conducted by the University of York published in the journal Addiction showed that there is evidence that patients who smoke cannabis and have schizophrenia can experience worsened symptoms. Research has also shown that banning cannabis would not have a large impact on mental health because there is low risk of increased psychosis and the chances of developing serious mental health problems as a result of cannabis use are relatively rare. Although the risk remains low, high potency cannabis does increase the risk more so than low potency cannabis, and individuals who already had schizophrenia prior to smoking cannabis experienced exacerbated symptoms. In reality, the greatest health risk comes from those who use both cannabis and tobacco because of the potential dependency on tobacco at an early age resulting in cancer, infection and other tobacco related health issues. Regulating cannabis could result in more effective strategies for helping drug users in need and reduce and prevent potential health risks, but there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding treatment approaches and more research needs to be conducted.

I thought this was very interesting research, but would like to know more details. I am interested in how different drugs affect the biology of the brain and I wish this article went more in depth on this topic.  I would specifically like to know which symptoms of schizophrenia are worsened with cannabis use and if use must be habitual to have a noticeable effect. I think that this article is a good starting place for research, but presents a lot of unanswered questions. 

Comments

  1. Kee RoseMay 1, 2017 at 6:49 PM

    I recently posted an article similar to this about how using cannabis in adolescence can increase the onset of Schizophrenia if one has the gene for it. As you said, I wish that both articles would go into detail. One thing that I can tie together on my own is that Schizophrenia patients already experience amnesia and it is said that THC changes the way that the hippocampus processes information, causing memory loss. This would heighten the amnesia already being experienced. Drugs can have all kinds of affects on your brain. Drugs mimic our neurotransmitters and cause an imbalance. Too much neurons can cause disrupted messages in the brain.The prefrontal cortex will try to override the ventral tegmental area which is located in the midbrain and responsible for rewarding effects of drugs. This area wants more and continued drug use teaches our brain to adapt to this "good" thing that is happening and most likely will lead to addiction. The mesolimbocortical dopamine system also plays a huge part in drugs. With drug use, comes an increased amount of dopamine in the ventral tegmental area.
    I'm interested to know how far this research can go.

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  2. Destiny DavisMay 1, 2017 at 9:01 PM

    After reading the blog post and the prior comment I found that I was left with a host of questions and ideas on the topic. Similar to Katie I found that I too wished to know more about which symptoms exactly cannabis use worsened. Using my previous knowledge of schizophrenia I began to wonder whether cannbis worsened the positive symptoms associated with schizophrenia, the negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia or the disorganized symptoms associated with schizophrenia. I personally believe that it would possibly worsen the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are the symptoms associated with a lack of normal function in a certain area such as alogia- or a lack of speech, anhedonia- lack of pleasure and flat affect - lack of emotional expression. I feel that cannabis would worsen these symptoms because cannabis use is shown to slow the processing of information as well as the reaction time of users and for people already experiencing issues with this cannabis would just worsen the symptom. However I would love to see a experiment that focused only on this and see what the final results are.

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  3. UnknownMay 1, 2017 at 9:32 PM

    I’ve read a lot on this subject recently, not only in the news, but a lot in this blog as well. A lot of what I’ve read on my own has been related to the endocannabinoid system (?) in the body. Cannabinoids, also found in marijuana, are produced naturally in the body and help with many processes, including but not limited to mood, appetite, immune function, and motor control. With claims like these it’s not hard to see why cannabis had been such a “hot” research subject. Cannabis could potentially do a lot to help treat symptoms of disorders, but it doesn’t get to the root of the anything. As far as the endocannabinoid system goes however, I’m not sure why or how it works the way it does (or if it’s even real) and it’s hard to find academic or legitimate information on it, so I’m naturally skeptical. Your article which points out how the risk for psychosis is lower than previously thought seems to be in the same camp as most of the other research I’ve seen in that it points out how few negative side effects it has in comparison to mainstream pharmaceuticals. I’m still conflicted because of the way its marketed, the lack of accessible information, and the lack of longitudinal research.

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