THE DOWNSIDE OF SMOKING POT

A new study published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry
may give lobby groups who want to legalize marijuana a harm-reduction
reason to prove their point.

The analysis confirmed what we reported several weeks ago: Eliminating
or reducing cannabis use by young people could delay or even prevent
some cases of psychosis.

Proponents of the legalization of marijuana have said that approaching
cannabis in a similar way to alcohol would allow for higher quality
control; less potent and, therefore, less dangerous levels of
psychosis-causing elements in marijuana; and ability to better control
access by younger people.

The last time we wrote about this, our inbox was inundated from the
networked groups supporting legalization of marijuana.

Some were abusive (accusing us of making up false scientific claims),
some were angry (accusing of us perpetuating "establishment myths" to
scare young people) and some were just in disagreement with the
scientific findings presented.

This new report is based on data that is very difficult for reasonable
people to deny.

The analysis looked at 22,000 patients with psychosis and cannabis
users showed an onset of symptoms about three years earlier than
non-cannabis users, and almost two years sooner than users of other
drugs.

Alcohol use was not associated with an earlier onset of
psychosis.

The researchers said: "Reducing the use of cannabis could be one of
the few ways of altering the outcome of the illness because earlier
onset of schizophrenia is associated with a worse prognosis and
because other factors associated with age at onset, such as family
history and sex, cannot be changed."

Up until this study, researchers were divided over the issue of a
causal association between cannabis and mental illness.

The authors of this study took steps to resolve uncertainty by means
of meta-analysis, which takes data from many studies and allows
researchers to examine hundred or thousands of more sample subjects.

Unfortunately, teenagers and young people (like many of us) are so
ashamed to admit they are experiencing symptoms of mental illness,
they self-medicate with marijuana or other street drugs, temporarily
reducing their discomfort, but unknowingly making their condition much
worse.

The study authors wrote: "This finding is an important breakthrough in
our understanding of the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis.

"It raises the question of whether those substance users would still
have gone on to develop psychosis a few years later and confirms the
need for a renewed public health warning about the potential for
cannabis use to bring on psychotic illness."

Talk to your teens and young people in your family and encourage them
to get the facts for themselves.

After all, many youths see a parent's job as trying to stop them from
having fun and worrying too much about non-existent or exaggerated
dangers.

This one is real and it is one of the few causes of psychosis we can
substantially influence.