Marijuana Use Precedes Psychosis

Mar. 2, 2011— -- Teens and young adults who start using cannabis may have an increased risk of having psychotic experiences in the years following, a German study found.

Among young people who had never smoked pot and did not have any psychotic symptoms, those who started using the drug were nearly twice as likely to develop subclinical symptoms of psychosis, Dr. Jim van Os of Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands and colleagues reported online in BMJ.

In a separate analysis, those who used cannabis consistently were more likely to report persistent psychotic experiences at more than one follow-up visit.

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The findings were independent of age, sex, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, childhood trauma, and urban/rural environment, and remained significant after further adjustment for other psychiatric diagnoses.

There was no evidence that psychotic symptoms precipitated cannabis use, which would have suggested a self-medication explanation for the association.

According to the researchers, the results help clarify the temporal association between cannabis use and psychotic experiences, which are common and generally transitory phenomena that could potentially progress to a clinical psychotic disorder in the presence of certain environmental risks.

"Our study confirmed cannabis as an environmental risk factor, impacting on risk of psychosis by increasing the risk of incident psychotic experiences, and, if use continues over time, increasing the risk of persistent psychotic experiences," van Os and his colleagues wrote.

Although cannabis has been consistently associated with psychosis in prior studies, there is an ongoing debate about whether the relationship is causal, whether it can be explained by residual confounding, or whether it can be explained by the use of the drug to self-medicate for existing psychotic symptoms.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland in Herston, Australia, and Dr. Louisa Degenhardt of the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, argued that the study findings discounted the latter two possibilities, leaving only a causal explanation.

"Sensible reasoning supports the policy of providing young people with information about the risks of using cannabis," they wrote. "The case for communication is strengthened by evidence that regular cannabis use in adolescence predicts poorer educational outcomes, increased risk of using other illicit drugs, increased risk of depression, and poorer social relationships in early adulthood."