A new study indicates that adolescent boys who use marijuana on a weekly basis may be at heightened risk for subclinical symptoms of psychosis. (The term subclinical typically refers to the early stages or mild form of an illness.) Alarmingly, these symptoms appear to persist, even after a year of abstinence from the drug.
Previous research linked regular marijuana use to earlier onset of psychosis, but it’s not clear whether such use leads to the expression of psychotic symptoms or whether people are more likely to turn to marijuana because it relieves their distressing psychiatric symptoms. The present study, which was conducted by Bechtold, et al and published online by The American Journal of Psychiatry in May 2016 sought to clarify this question.
Researchers randomly selected 1009 boys from public schools and asked them about the frequency of their marijuana use, as well as the presence of various psychotic symptoms every year between the ages 13 and 18. At each assessment interval, the boys were also asked about matters, including other substance use, that could potentially confound the study’s findings.
The researchers found that for each year that the boys engaged in regular marijuana use, their expected level of subsequent subclinical psychotic symptoms rose by 21%. The greatest increase was seen in paranoid symptoms, but there was a substantial rise in hallucinations as well. These effects persisted even when subjects stopped using marijuana for a year. Moreover, the idea that marijuana was being used to ameliorate psychiatric symptoms was not supported by the temporal relationships seen in the data. That is, the boys were not more likely to engage in regular use after an increase in their psychotic symptoms.
The authors concluded that:
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Categories: addiction, addiction and adolescents, addiction and other mental health disorders, Addiction as a Brain Disease, adolescent substance abuse, adolescents and marijuana, marijuana and adolescence, marijuana and brain damage, marijuana and psychosis, marijuana use and schizophrenia, talking to teens about substance abuse, teen substance abuse
Tagged as: Addiction as a Brain Disease, adolescent addiction, adolescent substance abuse, Adolescents and Drug Abuse, marijuana, marijuana and adolescents, marijuana and psychosis, marijuana and the brain, marijuana risks, Substance Abuse, Substance abuse risks
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