Adolescents who use cannabis could face a significantly higher risk of developing serious psychiatric disorders by young adulthood, according to a large new study published today in JAMA Health Forum. The longitudinal study followed 463,396 adolescents ages 13 to 17 through age 26 and found that past-year cannabis use during adolescence was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident psychotic (doubled), bipolar (doubled), depressive and anxiety disorders.
The study analyzed electronic health record data from routine pediatric visits between 2016 and 2023. Cannabis use preceded psychiatric diagnoses by an average of 1.7 to 2.3 years. The study’s longitudinal design strengthens evidence that adolescent cannabis exposure is a potential risk factor for developing mental illness.
Unlike many prior studies, the research examined any self-reported past-year cannabis use, with universal screening of teens during standard pediatric care, rather than focusing only on heavy use or cannabis use disorder.
The study also found that cannabis use was more common among adolescents enrolled in Medicaid and those living in more socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods, raising concerns that expanding cannabis commercialization could exacerbate existing mental health disparities.
Classic case of using cannabis as a scapegoat in a random study to "prove" how harmful it is. Tale as old as time.
"I don't like the result of this study so its random and wrong."
Lol. Lmao even. What was that about tales as old as time?
"I believe any clickbait headline that I see. The article says these things are LINKED!!!"
lmao.
That's a reach.
You spelled scientific study incorrectly.
There has been many, many, many decades of attempts, since the 1920s, at deeply flawed studies to prove some weak link between marijuana use and some bad outcome. Of course, it's quickly found out that it was using rats, or some other small animal using fucked-up dosage:mass ratios, or the sample size was 20, or they were using the (literally) rotted garbage that was the government-grown marijuana stash, or it was funded by some DARE group, or funded by the nicotine industry, or the alcohol industry, or they didn't prove causation, or they forgot to factor mental health, or social class, or racial factors, or a thousand other obvious problems.
I'm not going to go around and say cannibus doesn't have its problems. But, given the track record of obviously flawed studies that land on this forum, and even more so with cannibus research, I'll default to a position of extreme skeptism until proven otherwise.
Cool, maybe that's true.
But ancient history isn't relevant and doesn't change the fact that cannabis use actually has legitimately been strongly correlated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
But it is proven that cannabis use causes bad outcomes. If used while the brain is developing, it causes learning problems. While smoking is not the only method to use the drug, it is the most common. Any type of smoke entering the lungs causes bad outcomes, and cannabis smoke contains orders of magnitude more tar than tobacco smoke. It is proven that it causes CHS in chronic/daily users. Addiction is a bad outcome. Memory problems are a bad outcome. These are all proven to be caused by cannabis use.
Even if that's true, the point is that correlation =/= causation. WOOOSH!!!
When people like you attempt to blame w33d, that's pseudo-science probably not even based on real science.
And again it's a tale as old as prohibition.
Yep, that's why I typed "correlated" instead of "causes".
I lean toward that interpretation but am open to being wrong.
I work in mental health and was surprised by the amount of people in the field who believe marijuana is part of the problem, not just a symptom of it.
I've been in mental health institutions and it's amazing how many people will blame drugs in order to completely ignore the deep life/social problems that people face.
That's basically the whole point of the mental health industry. They turn social problems into druggable, profitable, "medical" problems - while also undermining any movements for social progress.
As someone that came out of a CSA victim position, most everyone I knew that was using in High School - the girls most of all - were dealing with similar issues.
Whether it was low-key sexual assault - being groped, or pressured to "put out" or even family friends or relatives, (in my own case it was "Uncle Touchy" in 1978, when I was 13.. He was 34, hairy, chicken-chested and gross and thought he was God's Gift to women..) in the late 70's / early 80's there was a lot of sexual abuse that was part of the landscape for girls "growing up".
Much of it came out of the social norms of the time - the fallout of the "swinging" 70's where it was all about sex. 24/7 sex, preferrably with 14 year olds, as that was the age in which the consensus was that there was something wrong with you if your cherry hadn't been popped.. Just a dreadful era, honestly.
The pot use was to numb the pain and forget what they'd gone through. I chose not to forget.. and got stoned anyhow.
This is precisely the kind of situation that is re-entrenched by blaming the problem on weed.
That's the real danger of pseudo-scientific articles like this.