The Link Between Marijuana Use and Psychosis: A Critical Analysis

This essay critically analyzes the link between marijuana use and the onset of psychosis, including the factors contributing to this association. The study focuses on the risks of daily smoking of cannabis and its impact on mental health. The findings suggest that long-term and regular use of marijuana can increase the vulnerability to psychotic disorders.

Running head: HEALTH SCIENCES
Health Sciences
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Author Note

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In different countries of world, marijuana is counted as one of the most abusive drugs
undoubtedly. Therefore, various research studies reveals that, the use of this marijuana is one
of the key contributor of induction of mental health disorders or psychosis. Mainly, anxiety,
depression, schizophrenia are counted to be associated with the practice of marijuana
consumption. Moreover, it is also evident that, the amount of marijuana consumption, genetic
factors, vulnerability of the individual are also associated with the onset of the mental health
disorders among the individual ( Murray et al., 2016). Marijuana is one of the members of the
marijuana family and in US, it was reported that, the trend of smoking cannabis is enhancing
day by day and it is also promoting the risks of psychosis among the people. A news article
published on CBC news focuses on this same topic that daily smoking of cannabis are
associated with the enhanced risks of psychosis. The article named ‘Smoking strong pot daily
raises psychosis risk, study finds’ was published on 20th march, 2019 in CBC News (CBC
NEWS, 2019) and in this essay, the information provided in the article are analysed in a
critical manner.
In the published article, it was observed that the researchers collected all the
information from the Europe and Brazil in between 2010 to 2015 (CBC NEWS, 2019). The
study of Radhakrishnan, Wilkinson & D’Souza (2014), enlightened the fact that, the
consumptions of cannabinoids can affect the nervous system of the human system.
Cannabinoid is the molecule present in the cannabis and it is assumed that, this molecule is
responsible for all the psychotic symptoms observed in the users of cannabis. Moreover, not
only the natural one, but the synthetic cannabis can also exert the same effect among the
users of cannabis. These two types of cannabis can induce psychotic symptoms like,
cognitive deficits, psychophysiological abnormalities among the users. The extract of
cannabis comprise of THC which is associated with the onset of psychosis. In studies, it is
observed that, consumption of cannabis will cause symptoms like paranoid, suspiciousness,

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conceptual disorganization, grandiose delusions and fragmented thinking which are counted
as positive symptoms of the psychotic disorder schizophrenia. Along with this, the
consumption can also exert symptoms like derealisation, feeling of unreality, altered sensory
perception and depersonalization also. In this study, a dose dependent, double- blinded
experiment was performed and from the that experiment it was found that, THC can be the
cause of psychotic symptoms like euphoria, conceptual alteration, anxiety, cognitive deficits
such as loss of working memory, alteration in the attentiveness in the person. Along with this,
intravenous administration of the cannabis was also performed as a part of this experiment
and the intravenous treatment of the cannabis also showed the same effect in the laboratory.
Although, the effect of the antagonists of the D2 (Dopamine), receptors are not clear at all.
Not only this, the consumption of the cannabis can also cause various physical problems
along with the onset of the psychosis. The consumption is also associated with a few negative
symptom of schizophrenia that are lack of spontaneous actions, blunted effects, withdrawal of
emotions and retardation of psychomotor functions. It was also served that, the dose
dependent administration of the cannabis is associated with the onset of symptoms of the
psychosis among the users of the cannabis. After the administration, the cognitive
impairments mainly, reduced verbal memory and learning memory are observed among the
users of cannabis. The symptoms of acute psychosis such as hallucination, paranoid
behaviour, delusions, amentia, confusion, disorientation, depersonalizations are associated
with the use of cannabis. The finding of this study also supported the findings of the article
that, the family history, genetic factors, early childhood abusing history are also correlated
with the cannabis related psychosis among the patients. The findings of Mustonen et al.
(2018), also supported the fact that, daily smoking will enhance the risks of the psychosis. In
this study, a self-structured questionnaire was used by the authors for collecting the data. In a
15 year follow-up, almost 6081 people’s data were collected (N=6081). The people who had

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already any kind of psychosis disorders, were excluded from the study. The study
investigated the fact that, daily smoking can induce psychotic symptoms of various disorders
like elusion, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. A logistic regression model was used for
analysing the data along with the odd ratios (OR; 95% confidence interval, CI). It was
observed from the collected data, that the 12.3% of the total sample population, were daily
smokers and those heavy smokers had higher risks of inducing psychosis than the non-
smokers (unadjusted HR = 3.15; 95% CI 1.94–5.13). However, the light smokers had no
significant relationship with the onset of psychosis. The adjustment of cannabis use exerted
significant relation among the daily smoking and psychotic disorders among the users of the
cannabis. Moreover, the authors concluded that 49.1% of daily cannabis smokers had
reported about the physical problem that is reduction in the heart rate of the users and the
onset of psychosis was already reported by them. In another study by Andrade ( 2016), it
was reported that, marijuana use is one of the key reason of having mental health disorders
among the people who are the regular users of it. . In this study, it was also found that the
consumption of marijuana can induce the symptoms associated with maniac disorders,
depression, schizophrenia and symptoms are mainly auditory/visual hallucinations, ideas of
reference, delusion, paranoia, flight of ideas. This study also supported the association of
THC in the onset of psychosis among the users of cannabis or marijuana. Therefore it is
concluded that, the daily use of marijuana is positively promoting the risks of psychosis
among the daily users. Another study by Forti et al. ( 2009) also investigated the role of
cannabis consumption in inducing the mental health disorders or psychotic disorders. In this
study, the researchers selected the sample size of the age group of 18 years to 65 years. In this
case, all the subjects had experienced the first episode of psychosis before the enrolment in
the study. All the subjects were selected only if they had met the criteria of ICD-10 for the
psychotic diagnosis. Along with this, a healthy control group of 174 participants were

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incorporated into the study ( n=174). Advertisements were given in the newspaper, websites
for collecting the subjects after mentioning the type of study that is use of cannabis.
Moreover, leaflets were also distributed in trains, stations, buses. A psychosis screening
questionnaire was structured and distributed among the selected subject population for
collecting the data. As a part of this data collection method, sociodemographic data of the
subject population were collected from the participants. Therefore, among the total subject
population, a number of people reported about the consumption of cannabis. Those subjects
were interviewed by using Cannabis Experience Questionnaire and as a result, the authors
can have the assessment pattern of cannabis use among the users of this. In the intervention
group, 280 people were recruited as subject population (n=280). In this study, again the
authors used a logistic regression model for examining the relationship between psychotic
disorders and use of cannabis. In terms of the sociodemographic characteristics, no
significant relation was not found. In the intervention group, almost 57% of participants had
used cannabis in their life at least one time (n=159). On the other hand among the participants
of the control group almost 109 people used cannabis in their life (63% of total control group
participants) with OR = 0.8, 95% CI 0.6–1.5. Among the cannabis users, most of the
participants use cannabis before their age of 17 years and this was found among the
participants of intervention group of the study (65% of total cannabis users, n= 183).
However, in case of the control group, almost 52% of the total control group participants
used cannabis before the age of 17 years. Hence the author concluded that the use of cannabis
and its different subtypes were quite high among the patients who already experienced first
episodes of psychosis and the longer use of cannabis also promote the onset of psychotic
disorders like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. Moreover, in this study it was found that,
high-potency cannabis is more preferred by the patients who experienced the first episode of
psychosis.

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Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that the use of cannabis one of the key factors
behind the onset of psychotic disorders. However, there are also various other promoting
factors behind the introduction of psychotic disorders among the people. The long term use of
cannabis and its subtypes like marijuana, synthetic cannabis can create severe
psychophysiological problems among the users of cannabis. Along with this, the daily use of
cannabis can also promote the onset of the psychotic disorders among the people who used to
take marijuana in a regular manner. The people ,who smoked daily, are more vulnerable than
the non-smokers in terms of having psychotic disorders.

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References
Andrade, C. (2016). Cannabis and neuropsychiatry, 1: benefits and risks. The Journal of
clinical psychiatry, 77(5), e551-4.
CBC NEWS (2019). Smoking strong pot daily raises psychosis risk, study finds. CBC
NEWS. Retrieved from- https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/smoking-strong-pot-daily-raises-
psychosis-risk-study-finds-1.5063745
Forti, Di. M., Morgan, C., Dazzan, P., Pariante, C., Mondelli, V., Marques, R, T., Hnadley ,
R., Luzi, S., Russo, M., Paparelli, A., Butt, A., Stilo, A. S., Wiffen, B., Powell, J.,
Murray,M. R. (2009). High-potency cannabis and the risk of psychosis. The Bristish
Journal of Psychiatry, 195:488-491.
Mustonen, A., Ahokas, T., Nordström, T., Murray, G. K., Mäki, P., Jääskeläinen, E., ... &
Niemelä, S. (2018). Smokin ‘hot: adolescent smoking and the risk of psychosis. Acta
Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 138(1), 5-14.
Murray, R. M., Quigley, H., Quattrone, D., Englund, A., & Di Forti, M. (2016). Traditional
marijuana, high‐potency cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids: increasing risk for
psychosis. World Psychiatry, 15(3), 195-204.
Radhakrishnan, R., Wilkinson, S. T., & D’Souza, D. C. (2014). Gone to pot–a review of the
association between cannabis and psychosis. Frontiers in psychiatry, 5, 54.