Teens have access to vastly more potent cannabis than their parents had at their age. Parents need to understand the risks, including psychosis

12ft.io link

  • protist@mander.xyz
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    6 days ago

    I worked inpatient psych for a long time, and can tell you first-hand the link between psychosis and cannabis is real. No, this does not mean “if you smoke weed you’re going to get psychotic!” What it does mean is that if you’re someone with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia (e.g. you have a known family history) weed is a potential trigger for a psychotic episode. If someone has already developed schizophrenia, smoking weed can make their symptoms worse and more difficult to manage with medications.

    80% of people coming through the psych hospital, whatever, I don’t care if you smoke weed. Honestly, I wish people would smoke weed rather than use meth, K2, or a bunch of other drugs that fuck people up. But for that subset of people prone to psychotic episodes, the conversation centers around “some people can smoke weed and be fine, and you are not one of those people.”

    The most common ages for men to develop first episode psychosis are 18-25, and while it’s dumb that this article focuses on teenagers, the risk in that age group is genuinely higher. This article really is dumb overall and does not explain any of this well

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      Help me out here. I read the symptoms of psychosis, and I’ve definitely experienced those a couple times but only when I get super baked. But when it wears off I’m normal again.

      What am I missing? To me this sounds like there’s a link between bad driving and people that drink which is like “duh” to me.

      • quetzaldilla@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Wikipedia will be a much better source, but my understanding is that psychosis can be a temporary symptom, or it can be a permanent health condition that calls for medical treatment.

        Psychoactive drugs like marijuana, mushrooms, LSD, etc. can trigger permanent psychotic health condition on people who have genetic traits predisposed to such conditions.

        It’s like a genetic game of roulette whenever any of us smoke it-- it could be the beginning of a very difficult health condition to manage for the rest of our lives.