Marijuana Use Increases Psychosis Risk

Marijuana Use Increases Psychosis Risk

Well folks, here it is again. Yet more studies that conclusively demonstrate that SMOKING MARIJUANA IS BAD FOR YOU!!

Regular readers of my blog will have already read the other numerous scientific studies about which I have previously written.

Here are two more studies – one involving 20,000 people with psychotic illness, and another involving 1,923 people ages 14-24 over a period of 10 years.

Dutch researchers led by Jim van Os from Maastricht University conducted the decade-long youth study in Germany and ruled out those that presently smoked marijuana and those with pre-existing psychosis. They found that new marijuana use doubled the risk of new psychotic symptoms, even after accounting for age, sex, socio-economic status, other drug use and other psychiatric disorders.

Dr Matthew Large, from Australia’s University of New South Wale’s School of Psychiatry and Prince of Wales Hospital worked in partnership with Melbourne, Australia’s St. Vincent’s Hospital and the U.S.’s George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, pooled patient data from more than 80 studies which had probed the link between psychotic illness and substance abuse. Previous studies had examined the role of marijuana, alcohol and other psychoactive substances, but this new study examined marijuana alone. They found that most of the schizophrenic patients had been marijuana smokers, and of those who had been, the onset of mental illness occurred 2.7 years earlier.

Addendum: 5/5/14 – The reader should note that the majority of all such research upon the long-term, or delayed effects of marijuana usage has been focused upon the immature (and therefore, not-fully-developed) brain. Most researchers have concluded that the human brain reaches full maturity around age 25. The greatest risks for psychoses in later life is experienced when the immature brain is exposed to cannabis.

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Smoking pot may hasten onset of mental illness

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110207/hl_nm/us_smoking_pot
By Nancy Lapid Nancy Lapid – Mon Feb 7, 5:19 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Smoking marijuana has been linked with an increased risk of mental illness, and now researchers say that when pot smokers do become mentally ill, the disease starts earlier than it would if they didn’t smoke pot.