More Evidence Links Marijuana With Psychosis

Marijuana

New evidence underscores what we have said for years: Marijuana use carries a number of dangers, including a link to psychosis.

NPR reports this week,

Several past studies have found that more frequent use of pot is associated with a higher risk of psychosis — that is, when someone loses touch with reality. Now a new study published Tuesday in the The Lancet Psychiatry shows that consuming pot on a daily basis and especially using high-potency cannabis increases the odds of having a psychotic episode later.

“This is more evidence that the link between cannabis and psychosis matters,” says Krista M. Lisdahl, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who wasn’t involved in the study.

The article goes on to say the study found daily marijuana users were three times more likely to suffer a psychotic episode than non-users, and those who started using marijuana at 15 years of age or younger faced an increased mental health risk compared to those who started using marijuana when they were older.

Many of the study’s findings focus on use of “high potency” cannabis, but as the article notes, the average marijuana on the market in the U.S. and Europe qualifies as “high potency” cannabis — meaning the study has serious implications for everyone using so-called “medical” and recreational marijuana.

As we keep saying, marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

Photo Credit: My 420 Tours [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

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Proposal Would Make It Easier to Use Marijuana in Arkansas

Marijuana

Yesterday we shared a commentary from our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview highlighting a New York Times op-ed about the growing public health threat posed by marijuana.

This week a bill was filed at the Arkansas Legislature making it easier for Arkansans to use marijuana under the state’s so-called “medical marijuana” amendment.

Currently, Amendment 98 to the Arkansas Constitution lets Arkansans use marijuana if they have any one of a long list of qualifying conditions.

H.B. 1150 by Rep. Doug House (R – North Little Rock) expands the list of qualifying conditions to add the following:

  • adiposis dolorosa or Dercum’s Disease
  • anorexia
  • Arnold-Chiari malformation,
  • asthma,
  • attention deficit disorder,
  • attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
  • autism
  • bipolar disorder
  • bulimia
  • causalgia
  • chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy
  • chronic insomnia
  • chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
  • complex regional pain syndrome Type I and Type II
  • dystonia
  • emphysema
  • fibrous dysplasia
  • general anxiety disorder
  • hydrocephalus
  • hydromyelia
  • interstitial cystitis
  • lupus
  • migraine
  • myasthenia gravis
  • myoclonus
  • nail-patella syndrome
  • neurofibromatosis
  • Parkinson’s Disease
  • posterior lateral sclerosis
  • post concussion syndrome
  • reflex sympathetic dystrophy
  • residual limb and phantom pain
  • restless leg syndrome,
  • Sjogren’s syndrome,
  • spinocerebellar ataxia
  • spinal cord injury or disease including without limitation arachnoiditis
  • syringomyelia
  • Tarlov cysts
  • traumatic brain injury

If passed, H.B. 1150 would let people with COPD or emphysema smoke marijuana.

It would let parents give marijuana to their child if the child tests positive for ADD or ADHD.

It would let people with traumatic brain injuries use marijuana.

Of course, research does not show that marijuana is effective treating these conditions. However, research has shown that marijuana smoke contains more tar and carcinogens than tobacco, and marijuana-use is linked to a host of mental problems, including permanent loss in IQ and increased risk of schizophrenia.

In other words, it probably isn’t a good idea to let people with lung disease smoke marijuana, and it probably isn’t a good idea to give marijuana to people with learning disabilities or brain injuries.

Arkansas’ marijuana amendment already makes it very easy for people to use marijuana, but H.B. 1150 arguably makes it even easier.

You can contact your state representative about H.B. 1150 by calling the Arkansas House of Representatives at (501) 682-6211.

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Marijuana Legalization: A Public Health Threat

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Our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview published a brief commentary today identifying some of the public health threats posed by legalization of marijuana.

John Stonestreet writes,


This is stone-cold crazy.

According to Alex Berenson, in a lead op-ed in the New York Times, the legalization of marijuana is a serious and growing threat to public health and public safety.

The article is entitled “What Advocates of Legalizing Pot Don’t Want You to Know.” In it, Berenson lays out the evidence for that claim, and it’s sobering. Maybe frightening.

Not only are cannabis users more likely to start using opioids, but the National Academy of Medicine reports that using pot “is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Between 2006 and 2014, emergency room visits for marijuana-induced psychosis tripled to 90,000. And all of the first four states to legalize marijuana have seen “sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults since 2014.”

And yet, more and more states are rushing headlong toward legalization. Folks, come to BreakPoint.org, we’ll link you to the Times piece. Share it with your state legislators.

If Christians are really for human flourishing and loving our neighbors, it’s time to speak out against legalizing marijuana.

We’ve written numerous times about the dangers posed by marijuana and the link between marijuana use and mental health concerns — including memory problems, a permanent loss in IQ, and schizophrenia.

As we have said time and time again, marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

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