A recent study that was published in the Psychiatric Research Journal is shaking up claims made by drug prohibitionists’ that cannabis usage is responsible for psychotic episodes in teenagers. As it turns out, that simply isn’t the case. Sorry, anti-cannabis crowd, science wins again.
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As it turns out, the research done by the Center for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds has shown that although there is a correlation between cannabis usage and psychotic episodes, cannabis is not the CAUSE of the psychotic episodes. By interviewing a group of over 4,800 twins, the study concluded that just because a teen smoked cannabis or had a psychotic episode of some kind, one did not cause the other.
What they did find is that there were several environmental factors ranging from poverty to bullying that lead to both cannabis use and psychotic episodes. Basically the same environmental factors that lead to teenagers smoking cannabis ALSO lead to psychotic episodes, not BECAUSE of cannabis use. This is important research because it is another case of the anti-cannabis movement using false correlations to demonize cannabis use. Correlation is not causation.
Read: Researchers prove marijuana doesn’t affect your intelligence
If you think about it, the correlation makes sense. Teenagers in bad socioeconomic situations or bad social environments would tend to turn to cannabis as a means for dealing with their situations. Those same conditions turn adults to use anti-depressants and other pharmaceuticals. The anti-cannabis movement is losing ground in their propaganda campaigns designed at scaring parents into demonizing cannabis use by making false claims as more and more legitimate research is done. Personally, as an adult, I’d much rather turn to cannabis than taking other pharmaceutical “treatments”, so why should we blame teens for doing the same thing?
Read: 5 of the Most Ridiculous Arguments Against Marijuana Leagalization
In honor of good, positive, peer reviewed research that is changing the way that people thing about cannabis and its effects, watch these grandmothers smoke weed for the first time:
