I heard this story on the radio last night and actually laughed out loud.

Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.

The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.

“The available evidence now suggests that cannabis is not as harmless as many people think,” said Dr. Stanley Zammit, one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at Cardiff University.

Yikes! But, um, from the same article:

The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.

And not to get all ad hominem here, but this comes just as Britain is debating the relaxation of its marijuana laws. And as one reader points out, this paragraph may well be relevant:

Two of the authors of the study were invited experts on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs Cannabis Review in 2005. Several authors reported being paid to attend drug company-sponsored meetings related to marijuana, and one received consulting fees from companies that make antipsychotic medications.

Even among heavy users, and even assuming all of this data is correct, the increased risk is negligible, and the overall risk remains extremely low. And even then, the study hasn’t proved causation, and doesn’t claim to, though that’s certainly the way it’s being interpreted, and is how it will be cited by drug warriors. It just means that a negligibly higher percentage of marijuana users seem to develop schizophrenia. Of course, it could well be that genetic predisposition to schizophrenia may cause some people to disproportionately escape with mind-altering substances.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 12:36 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.