Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds

I'll save everyone a click: yes, this is a case of 'correlation != causation'. We know extremely well, for a fact, that at least a good chunk of the SCZ/marijuana use relationship is confounded/reverse causation. The authors do little to improve over the known-wrong simple correlation strategy.

This is especially lame when they have access to the Danish population registry with its rich metadata and very large _n_, and could so easily control for a lot of confounds, by doing within-family comparisons. (Spoilers: the correlations would shrink a lot if you compare siblings or better yet, twins. Tip to the authors if you're reading this: 'controlling for parental history of schizophrenia', for something as rare as schizophrenia where so few are diagnosed but will still be carrying heavy liability, doesn't control for genetic factors.) They could have done some actual science, and contributed some knowledge; instead, all they did was waste everyone's time by contributing yet another meaningless highly-confounded piece of research to add to the pile of other equally useless correlates on SCZ/marijuana, a pile which did not need increasing. What a waste.

> schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis. I have no idea why

I think that there are a number of reasons for this. CBD, exploration/play of mental states, and the hundred+ other cannabinoids may all be a factor.

First, cannabis can contain CBD, which has strong, known anti anxiety and anti-psychotic effects. Couldn't a person vulnerable to episodes recognize this effect when enjoying a higher CBD strain, then seek it out again?

It is very unfortunate for these people that prohibition selected for high THC, low CBD strains.

Second, it can be a great benefit to know, from experience, that smoking a herb can bring on near-psychosis. Certainly, some people try to get a handle on their condition by 'playing' with it in this way.

Learning about the physical feelings and clues that go along with the early stages of an episode may help in some way to feel in control, and even learn to recognize and change the course of a budding episode.

Again, it is more than unfortunate that prohibition and propaganda have prevented any real exploration of these possibilities. For thousands of years shamans have played with mental states, and it was seen as not just positive but necessary.

It is too often seen as heresy if you suggest that psychosis doesn't actually need to be treated with hardcore pharmaceuticals, for life. I do believe though that it could - at least sometimes - be better treated as a mental state which can be self-recognized, and integrated.

Third, cannabis contains hundreds of cannabinoids other than THC and CBD. Some of these may have positive effects on all sorts of things related to schizophrenia and psychosis - mood, humour, insight, metabolism, gut health, etc.

Studies which only examine THC and CBD in isolation can only ever understand so much - these interactions may be a lot more complex than we commonly guess.

I think it's less useful to compare marijuana to something that can literally be classified as a poison (albeit a legal and socially acceptable one) and more useful to determine the boundaries of "when is it safe to use this substance?"

We're coming out of the era of "marijuana bad. marijuana addictive. gateway drug. gives you cancer. makes you kill your parents." etc etc and moving into actually trying to figure out general guidelines for when it's good/bad. I don't think trying to determine these boundaries is fear or misinformation necessarily. I think it certainly can be weaponized in either direction, but for people looking to determine if it's right for them, this is useful information.

And you're saying overconsumption is bad...can you define this? Just in this thread, there was someone who started their journey with it on a 15mg edible. That's insanely high for a beginner but maybe they read somewhere it was fine, or they had a psychonaut friend misguide them, or they just jumped right in with no frame of reference at all. The point is, if people are doing shit like that, it makes sense for there to be more of a general awareness of "here are the bad things that can happen."

> schizophrenic people are drawn to cannabis

This sounds a lot like saying that people with a predisposition to lung cancer are drawn to cigarettes.

An obvious shill for the burgeoning autistic weed lobby. I kid! Thanks for the seemingly perfect summary.