The link between cannabis and schizophrenia is also supper dubious at best.
Its for the most part based on statistics that a large number of people who go to the ER and are there diagnosed with psychosis have used cannabis.
Schizophrenia is a genetic condition characterized by frequent psychosis. And a significant number of this group experiments with cannabis before onset of schizophrenic symptoms, which often only arise in late puberty/ young-adult age.
There are theories that cannabis may trigger schizophrenia in people that have the genetic sensibility to it. Assuming it would otherwise have stayed dorment (for longer)
But 3 pieces of information are ignored.
First people diagnosed with schizophrenia that did not use cannabis before onset of symptoms share the exact same statistically tendency to start using cannabis later in life as the group that did before, leading to theories of self medication and there is proof of anti-psychotic properties of some cannabinoids.
20% of the general population smokes (nicotine), 80% of the schizophrenic population smokes, its such a well known fact that its a common movie trope. Yet not a single theory about how nicotine effects psychosis exist. Because remember only rare people with a genetic sensibility can develop psychosis and psychotic paranoia is a fear tactic
Psychosis and schizophrenia are not well understood in general, there part of the neurodivergent spectrum which is a modern idea in its scientific infancy,
More and more we do understand that the main driver of psychosis (and every person can be pushed into experiencing a psychosis) is extreme levels stress.
I know some other things extreme is related with:
addiction to substance abuse of any kind, every time you crave = stress
the troubles a (young) person may have that leads to them frequently using drugs to begin with.
The statistics do make sense but relation simply isn’t causation and its shameful that politicians can just misinterpret science like this.
Yes, I suppose what I ought to have said is that for people with an already elevated risk of developing schizophrenia cannabis could be the trigger. Thank you for this well written summary though.
The link between cannabis and schizophrenia is also supper dubious at best.
Its for the most part based on statistics that a large number of people who go to the ER and are there diagnosed with psychosis have used cannabis.
Schizophrenia is a genetic condition characterized by frequent psychosis. And a significant number of this group experiments with cannabis before onset of schizophrenic symptoms, which often only arise in late puberty/ young-adult age.
There are theories that cannabis may trigger schizophrenia in people that have the genetic sensibility to it. Assuming it would otherwise have stayed dorment (for longer)
But 3 pieces of information are ignored.
First people diagnosed with schizophrenia that did not use cannabis before onset of symptoms share the exact same statistically tendency to start using cannabis later in life as the group that did before, leading to theories of self medication and there is proof of anti-psychotic properties of some cannabinoids.
20% of the general population smokes (nicotine), 80% of the schizophrenic population smokes, its such a well known fact that its a common movie trope. Yet not a single theory about how nicotine effects psychosis exist. Because remember only rare people with a genetic sensibility can develop psychosis and psychotic paranoia is a fear tactic
Psychosis and schizophrenia are not well understood in general, there part of the neurodivergent spectrum which is a modern idea in its scientific infancy, More and more we do understand that the main driver of psychosis (and every person can be pushed into experiencing a psychosis) is extreme levels stress.
I know some other things extreme is related with:
addiction to substance abuse of any kind, every time you crave = stress
the troubles a (young) person may have that leads to them frequently using drugs to begin with.
The statistics do make sense but relation simply isn’t causation and its shameful that politicians can just misinterpret science like this.
Yes, I suppose what I ought to have said is that for people with an already elevated risk of developing schizophrenia cannabis could be the trigger. Thank you for this well written summary though.