Is Marijuana affecting your mental health?

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is characterized by psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations. Dr. John Csernansky has done quite a lot of research on schizophrenia including studies that map the different brain structures. Schizophrenia causes significant physical deterioration of the brain over time. Although most people have seen or read about schizophrenia in the media, many people do not fully understand how it must be for these individuals. It is not distinguishable through physical appearance, but it can be noticed in behaviors and body language. There are some signs of schizophrenia that show up as a child or teenager called Prodrome that embodies some type of departure from the normal brain development. Some of these signs include, shyness, social awkwardness and withdrawal, and even a drop of academic grades. Then, the first episode of psychosis appears as young adults. However, until the psychosis becomes a symptom, these signs cannot lead to a clinical diagnosis.  

Now, cannabis is gaining popularity in the United States, as many States have recently legalized recreational marijuana, including in my home state, California. Thus, it was very easy to find articles about cannabis, its health effects and its popularity among young adults. I worry that if cannabis is becoming more popular, and its recreational use increases, so will any negative effects. Although it has a low tendency of addiction, this drug could cause any number of negative long term health issues.  According to an article on marijuana from Scientific American, medical marijuana was popular at first for its ability to relieve pain, nausea, and muscle stiffness. Temporarily using cannabis for medical reasons seems to be ok according to doctors, but long term use and young adult use of marijuana can impair functions and even harm the developing brain.

Dr. Csernansky also studied the effect that cannabis has on Schizophrenia by comparing biological differences in patients with a history of cannabis use. Since there are signs that may show up even as a child, this must mean that schizophrenia must be acquired at birth even if there are no diagnosable symptoms until young adulthood. Therefore, smoking marijuana is not going to cause people to develop schizophrenia but instead, if they are already predisposed to the condition, cannabis use can cause an early onset. As Csernansky’s research implies, the earlier the onset of schizophrenia, the worse the symptoms will be. However, I found in a New York Times article that drinking and drug use has significantly decreased. Contrary to my concerns, the use of marijuana among young adults will hopefully continue to decrease.

References:

Smith M., et al. Cannabis-related episodic memory deficits and hippocampal morphological differences in healthy individuals and schizophrenia subjects. Hippocampus. 2015 September; 25(9): 1042-1051.

Khamsi, Roxanne. How Safe Is Recreational Marijuana? Scientific American. 2013

Reuters. Drinking, Drug Use Largely Down Among U.S. Teens in 2016. The New York Times. 2016