A new study from the Lancet Psychiatry suggests a connection — but there are a few issues with the study
As the push to legalize cannabis nationwide continues to gain ground — a record 61 percent of Americans support U.S.-wide weed legalization — those opposed to marijuana reform are doubling down, in part by citing research pointing to the health risks associated with daily cannabis consumption. The latest entry in that genre of research: a new study from The Lancet Psychiatryjournal, which suggests that there may be a correlation between daily marijuana use and psychosis.
The authors of the study assessed more than 900 people in multiple European cities, all of whom had been diagnosed with at least one episode of psychosis. The researchers then asked the subjects if they had used cannabis, when they had started using it, how often they used it, and what kind of strains they smoked. Compared against a control group of 1,100 “healthy” people (i.e. people who had not experienced psychosis), the researchers found that people who smoked marijuana every day were three times more likely to have a psychotic episode than those who had never tried the drug. Additionally, that risk went up among those who had started smoking marijuana as a teenager, and it increased even further if they had smoked high-potency weed (i.e. products with more than 10 percent THC).
Ej Dickson – Rolling Stone – March 20, 2019.
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