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Dec. 2nd, 2004 12:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingStudy shows that cannabis use is linked to psychotic mental illness
The study aimed to answer a question that has been unsettling psychiatrists for some time. People with psychosis, whose symptoms include hallucinations, paranoia, hearing voices and a persecution complex, are more likely than not to have a marijuana habit.
But doctors have not known whether they are smoking it for relief from their symptoms, or whether cannabis itself might be the problem.
[...]
It shows that regular cannabis smoking increased the risk of developing psychosis by 6% over four years.
But there was a substantially greater impact on young people who had already been identified by psychiatrists as having the potential to become psychotic. Regular cannabis smoking raised their risk of developing psychotic mental illness by 25%.
The study, published in the online version of the British Medical Journal, followed 2,437 young people living in Munich, Germany.
All had a psychiatric assessment at the start of the study, to identify those who might be vulnerable to psychosis. Four years later, they were asked about their cannabis use and their mental health was assessed again. Regular users of cannabis who had been identified as vulnerable to psychosis were much more likely to become psychotic than those who were neither.
Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, said there were still many unanswered questions, such as: "If half the world smokes cannabis, why aren't they all psychotic?"
The study aimed to answer a question that has been unsettling psychiatrists for some time. People with psychosis, whose symptoms include hallucinations, paranoia, hearing voices and a persecution complex, are more likely than not to have a marijuana habit.
But doctors have not known whether they are smoking it for relief from their symptoms, or whether cannabis itself might be the problem.
[...]
It shows that regular cannabis smoking increased the risk of developing psychosis by 6% over four years.
But there was a substantially greater impact on young people who had already been identified by psychiatrists as having the potential to become psychotic. Regular cannabis smoking raised their risk of developing psychotic mental illness by 25%.
The study, published in the online version of the British Medical Journal, followed 2,437 young people living in Munich, Germany.
All had a psychiatric assessment at the start of the study, to identify those who might be vulnerable to psychosis. Four years later, they were asked about their cannabis use and their mental health was assessed again. Regular users of cannabis who had been identified as vulnerable to psychosis were much more likely to become psychotic than those who were neither.
Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, said there were still many unanswered questions, such as: "If half the world smokes cannabis, why aren't they all psychotic?"