POT TV – A review of studies about cannabis and psychosis from Ava Mason.
There are thousands of claims about a hundred different cannabinoids, but THC causing psychosis is an especially interesting one, as it’s often repeated by prohibitionists to justify criminal penalties.
Politics aside, what does the science say about cannabis causing psychosis? It depends how you read it, and whether your reviewing peers are potheads.
Ava Mason’s review is short, broad, and comes, like the studies she cites, without an in-depth understanding of cannabis, but links to a lot of interesting research.
Mason touched on measuring methods, like neuroimaging, but didn’t stop to ask how those studies are possible without a normative brain neuroimaging database. She also cites high THC cannabis as a potential risk factor, but doesn’t ask whether those measures add up. Reviews she cited did not always exclude other substances, or address other inherent bias. There is no mention of cannabis’ entourage effect, and how that could influence study or review.
She does recognize that while cannabis use has gone up in the general population, psychosis rates, over the same time, have not.
We agree that more cannabis study is needed.
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