Although I did not support that bill, and am displeased with the Congressman’s hypocrisy, your article is not really helpful for furthering the cause of making the world a safer and better place for most people. Please try to think of ways we could have avoided the massacre in Texas or the recent shooting in California. The California shooter had an incident in January in which he stabbed someone. His mother paid his bail and got him out. She probably shouldn’t have done it. The Attorney General is launching an investigation on how Kelley, the Texas shooter, was able to purchase guns. Kelley escaped a psych ward a few years ago. It is not so simple. We have to compromise between human rights and victims’ rights, and the public has a right to be safe.
I could not find it, have not looked hard (I am not an MD or even a psychologist, just an interested party). I believe it came from University of Manchester. From some reason that university sticks in my head. If you still can’t find I will ask my friend the pharmacologist to find it. I agree with you that there is great variability, but the pot advocates are less mellow than they claim. Here is the latest article connecting marijuana users to violence. https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/10/11/cannabis-drug-use-violence-frontiers-in-psychiatry/
Very relevant, because there was a paper out of Great Britain that showed anti-psychotics are not effective on those who use marijuana. So whether or not the patient uses pot, quits pot or never used has to be taken into consideration.
It is so significant, what you’re saying, because warning kids not to use marijuana is the best defense against avoiding psychotic symptoms in the first place. Unfortunately, our youth is not told this truth. If they knew the truth, many (perhaps not all who use) would never try it in the first place.
As different states mull over this issue, some state psychiatric associations are silent. They know if a state legalizes it will be good for the business of psychiatry. Again this makes psychiatrists look very unethical, as if they just want more clients. They know that psychiatry is criticized a great deal, but that the legalization of marijuana will create a greater need for more psychiatric treatments, even if they don’t know what they’re doing.
Please remember that some people actually want treatment, and that the DSM is used mainly for insurance purposes, not that insurance companies should make the determination. People really should be more careful about writing off all psychiatry and psychiatrists as evil. Some of them really want to help people. To claim Psychiatry is all a massive fraud is unproductive. That it’s methods are very flawed and tentative should be exposed. However, some of the people who are making “wrong” diagnosis are actually well-meaning. loving people. We want a system that provides the most good for highest number of people, including family members who may be affected by a person’s behavior if it’s harmful to them or others. I have met people who trust and believe their medication or treatment works. These people should not be disregarded. Bruce Springsteen is one of those people, as he explains in his biography, “Born to Run.” But more I fear the extreme charges against psychiatrists will put too many people on the defensive, and we’ll be as ineffectual at changing things as we are with changing gun laws.
So sad, as he is another in the age group of 21-35 which is dying at unprecedented rates today, whether through suicide or drug overdose. Interesting that the young woman who started Project Semi-colon, Amy Bleuel, also took her life.
If he was told that Borderline Personality Disorder is permanent, he certainly wasn’t connected to the right literature about it. BPD is certainly a condition that can be treated and outgrown. It is often outgrown without intervention. I’ve read numerous books on the subject. BPD not primarily genetic, and so I’m wondering if it was an inaccurate diagnosis. Marsha Lenahan, who invented Dialectical Behavior Therapy, dropped a bombshell a few years ago which she admitted that she was a Borderline when first hospitalized with a psychiatric issue. (The diagnosis Many or even most teens act like they have BPD at some time or another. So do drug users. I have a friend who definitely fits the criteria for BPD and she grew up in London in an orphanage (both parents died of cancer by the time she was 8, as they had lived through the ceaseless bombings in World War 2). Certainly her BPD is an adaption to all the trauma, not getting the love she needed as a child.
We need to look at societal factors, not just blaming it all on psychiatry. There is so much pain out their today and it’s getting worse, not better. I found as a young adult many things are very surprising and that life is so very different from what you think and expect, which contributes to anguish. Think of all those who came to age as the economy collapsed.
This is too simplistic a statement. Yes madness is often a response against traumatizing circumstances. But to blame it all on quacks is wrong. Not all psychiatrists have bad intentions.
By the way, Monica, I find your website, Beyond Meds, wonderful and helpful in nearly all issues, physical healing and emotional healing. Thank you for doing what you do. Loved your podcast on MIA, too. Thanks.
Yes, I have read about Gabor Mate and his work and I am very concerned about the history of emotional pain and trauma and how it can be worked out. One trauma therapist, Janina Fisher, finds that heroin and marijuana are the two drugs that numb the pain of PTSD most effectively. Covering up the trauma doesn’t resolve the root of the trauma. And it is very disconcerting because by adding drug use to their trauma they are making it more difficult for themselves to heal from that trauma. We know victims of child abuse are more likely to abuse drugs. Bessel van der Kolk says about 50% of those who have childhood trauma will become drug or alcohol abusers. I certainly understand why. Those that don’t abuse drugs may become workaholics, exploitative of others, etc., as a coping mechanism. For treating the root of the trauma, I think we’d be better by using EMDR, biofeedback, Emotional Freedom Techniques, DBT, CBT and other therapies. Everyone has insecurities and I think some people abuse drugs not mainly because of trauma but because we live in a society that is encouraging and normalizing drug abuse and telling us that every little challenge in life, like ADHD and pain, needs to be medicated. The US society has fostered this love of drugs, and government allows advertising on TV. Would prefer if Gabor Mate did not enable drug abuse for the trauma victims, as it does not heal the root of trauma. I know there are people saying that MDMA can heal the trauma, but I wouldn’t trust that it could be done in careful, controlled settings like the testing is done. Would prefer the somatic healing strategies mentioned before to any type of drugs.
The family of the Nice terrorist said that he smoked really potent marijuana while in high school and that he had his first psychotic break at age 19. Later he was taking a cocktail of other drugs.
Psychiatrist.com published the case of a 20-year old man who went into psychosis from first time marijuana use. The paper says: “Several first-time, non-chronic cannabis users have presented to our clinic with psychosis or thought disorders lasting months after first- or second-time cannabis use.” He did not have family members with psychotic disorders. The authors work at Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx
You have to take seriously this high THC marijuana of today, even if it isn’t wax, dabs or shatter. Since it comes from Colorado and California, it’s very potent, and our kids are getting hooked on it and other drugs. We need more primary prevention, education against drug use. It would be ideal if no one had to take either Rx drugs or street drugs. To that goal, we need better recognition of traumatized children and interventions before they turn to drugs or develop mental illnesses. But not all drug users turn to drugs out of trauma; they’re doing it because our society is normalizing drug use.
Comment found on the Internet yesterday in reaction to a story of marijuana problems in youth: “My son, who is now 28, had his first Bipolar manic episode triggered by marijuana which he first tried his junior year in college. His psychosis was so severe he didn’t recognize his father and I. Unfortunately, the psych tech who evaluated your son was a moron. It is very well known by those in the mental health field that marijuana causes psychosis in roughly 10% of the population. In fact, the psych nurse who first cared for him in the hospital told us that he sees more first-time involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations from marijuana than any other drug. It took 3 years and 18 inpatient hospitalizations to restore his sanity. We know it was “only pot” because he was drug tested in the hospital and there were never any other drugs used. Thankfully, he didn’t continue to use it, but I believe it was easier for him to reject that life because he didn’t try it until age 20. It has been medically proven than children who start are far more likely to get addicted. Watch ‘Chasing the Dragon’ on FBI.gov, most opioid and heroin addicts started with marijuana at age 11 or 12.” Why does anyone want this to happen to other people? It’s a cruel trick.
Sorry made a mistake. It was Zyban that I took for 6 months to quit smoking awhile back, and that is also called Wellbutrin (not Zyprexa, which is a much more potent drug.
1. No
2. No
3. No
4. No
5 & 6 Was a smoker and the only time I took an anti-depressant was for a different purpose, to quit smoking. It was Welbutrin (Zyprexa) and it did the trick. I took it for about 6 months.
7. No relatives have cancer although there have been in the past.
8. The people I know who were recommended to try marijuana for their nausea related to cancer did not like it.
9. Of course I believe opioids and cigarettes are seriously addictive. Marijuana is more of a gateway drug than either opioids or cigarettes, in my opinion.
10. Did you read Libby Stuyt’s article and read how teen girls are harmed by it? For you information, my views are from living with a family member who was seriously unhinged by marijuana use, and delusional. Most of us who have such awful reactions to being against the drug were somehow affected by it in our families. We are not close-minded, conservatives as you’d like to say. I am curious to understand why you think it is just fine to let people mess up their brains, as those people in Olympia, WA who get roped into the mental health system from doing marijuana “dabs”? I do not buy the idea that racism is the reason that pot was made illegal. Massachusetts banned it in 1911 and it wasn’t a racial issue there. It was because there are people who become psychotic from it. It is a public health and safety issue, as well as the desire to create addiction for profit, which is what the marijuana industry does.
It is a shame that “Developmental Trauma Disorder” was not added as a condition in the DSM-5. Bessel van der Kolk and others lobbied for this with the committee and they marshaled a lot of support, such as that from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, who serve 6.1 million people annually.
Most of the studies are not from the USA. They come from around the world. Also, the World Health Organization put out a huge study about cannabis last year with tons of footnotes. You may want to check it out. The National Academy of Sciences put out a study in January. For its final paper, it reviewed 100 studies; the 100 studies were chosen for close examination from 10,000 medical studies. I strongly disagree with the statement that cannabis has not been studied well.
Was it the primary trauma that made you seek release in drugs? Or did you just do it for fun? Your experience is a good reason to argue to never start use of illicit drugs, and thus never be roped into the psychiatric system. Illicit drug use feeds psychiatry and gives it so much of the business, but what if people had the coping skills to never go to drug use in the first place? This comment does not excuse the use of these psych drugs because the psychiatrists need to wait and first stabilize the psychosis before even assessing if there is an underlying problem.
It’s not only Colorado that has a big problem with “recreational” marijuana. This hospital in Washington has 1-2 new psychosis patients everyday. They stabilize the patients by giving them Risperdal, perhaps hooking them into the mental health care system. http://www.theolympian.com/news/local/marijuana/article54985485.html
Explorer 86, I wonder why you believe all those reports? What about the fact that the survey you quote (and politicians quote it in Colorado, too) that left out the largest counties? Do you believe everyone is honest. In Pueblo where Dr. Stuyt lives, the teen use is really an ongoing social problem. So is the homelessness.
Explorer 86, there are articles by Dr. Jasmin Hurd that shows that using marijuana primes the offspring for heroin addiction. Yes, it was a gateway for those who died of drug abuse.
Why is there such a fear and denial of the deleterious effects of marijuana? Those I know who have died of drugs began drug use with marijuana, not with opioids. Other than Chuck Sigler, I am shocked that the people writing here question the validity of a doctor runs an addictions center in a state where marijuana is commercialized. She would have the experience to know what she’s talking about. I find Roy Unger’s dismissal of the high potency marijuana disturbing. This stuff led to the horrific deaths of Daniel Juarez and Levy Thamba. In Washington it is bet/22 and 28% THC. I went into Portland dispensaries and found mostly high THC, low CBD products–nothing that was balance.
The truth about THC is Colorado had a chance to lower the THC last year, as residents introduced a ballot to cap the THC at 16%. The marijuana industry bought off the ballot. They spent about $1 million to do it. So Dr. Stuyt’s idea of limiting the THC cannot become reality. These are greedy businesses that want to make money. It’s amazing that people who see through tobacco and pharma can’t see through the pot industry. If you pay attention, there’s nothing it doesn’t heal in the industry’s opinion.
Even recently in Oregon, an 18-year-old named Brandon Powell went psychotic from dabs and then went missing. He was found dead a month later. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 15-year-old from Vancouver who threw the firecrackers that started the Eagle Creek fire was stoned. His friends also — they were giggling as they did it.
Those who write on this thread didn’t comment on the studies that linked it to teen depression, especially females, a serious issue today. Why do they not take these concerns seriously? I think it’s because pot using people have propagandized that it is not addictive and that it’s safe to drive and that it won’t give you cancer. I have friends whose children or family members have gone psychotic from marijuana use. They end up permanently disabled, and in a few cases they killed themselves or tried to do it after heavy pot use. The number of people led to suicide from marijuana use is staggering, and the connection to schizophrenia is serious. (Read Patrick Cockburn’s book, Henry’s Demons). In fact the best way to protect yourself from having mental health problems is to never use marijuana. For so many people, marijuana was the gateway to psychiatric treatments We could largely get away from the need for psychiatrists and MIA, if we educated better against pot and other drug use.
Funny how you say the “majority of users.” What about those in the minority? Why don’t you believe in protecting them? The majority of cigarette smokers don’t get lung cancer. I think it’s like 20%. But if it can happen ever, shouldn’t people be warned? Yes, they should be. You wrote about your college friend in the 70s who went psychotic. That was with the low THC pot of the 70s. It was 4% THC in 1980, and that was higher than the 70s. Now it’s all high THC pot today. In Denver, they wanted to cap the THC at 16%, and the marijuana industry objected. This is all high potency stuff, all “hard drug” material today.
There are many alternative treatments for vets with PTSD such as Dog Therapy and Horse Therapy, both preferable to using meds or using marijuana. In fact, Yale came out with a study that showed vets who used marijuana were less likely to recover from their PTSD and to become more violent. Marijuana does not get to the root of the problem, only treats symptoms. Masks the problem, doesn’t treat it. Same with SSRIs. So we need better treatments and these are available if you look. The only reason alcohol is more dangerous in terms of accidents is that more people use it. But now that people have been using pot for 4 years in Washington, around 23% of their fatal accidents involve drivers with marijuana in their system. You seem to be one who would prefer the mental health risks in using drugs because of the experiential benefits. I don’t believe these risks make it worth it, especially with very high-potency marijuana of today, in which people are going psychotic at higher rates than previously. Henry Cockburn, journalist Patrick Cockburn’s son smoked pot from ages 14-19 and then was diagnosed as schizophrenic at age 20. He could have killed himself. I don’t think it’s worth doing to yourself or to your family, forcing them to worry for your well-being. The point is that most teens don’t even know that they’re playing Russian Roulette by experimenting with pot and other drugs. They should at least know that they risk developing a psychotic disorder or becoming suicidal. Here’s Patrick and Henry Cockburn’s story. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1349398/Patrick-Cockburn-My-son-played-Russian-roulette-cannabis-lost.html
On the rest of the article, psychiatric drugs are absolutely horrible. I will admit some people can do better on them, but most time the prescriptions are not warranted, and there are better ways to treat symptoms.
Dear Monica,
I really appreciate your own website and I have searched it for thoughts about several conditions and how they can be healed by using holistic treatments. It’s excellent information. I also read your testimony on how you got roped into psychiatric treatment while using drugs, supposedly both hard and soft. You also mention difficult events in your background, something that many authors are now writing about, particularly in childhood (Adverse Childhood Experiences.)
Although not everyone goes into psychosis from drug use and a few people come out of unscathed, isn’t it best to warn people that drug use (including marijuana) may rope you into the mental health system for a very long time? It doesn’t seem that we are appropriately warning people of this potential, particularly if they begin before the brain stops developing, age 25. A friend of mine’s son went into a psychotic break from pot that lasted 10 weeks. He starting using recreationally at age 19 and then he used it for pain. She said he never would have tried it if knew that it could trigger the bipolar label/disorder. Why not warn people?
This young man became psychotic with using marijuana only one time. http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx
Dear Will,
You wrote this article awhile ago. Today the connection between marijuana and psychosis is so clear and so widespread that any doctor who is experimenting on people with mental health challenges by giving them cannabis is very compromised. Plus normal marijuana is all high THC today. It has sent people into psychosis by using it only one time: http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx Even though you lived in San Francisco where drug use was mainstream, and where some survived it intact while others did not, you need to warn people that a way of staying out of psychiatric treatment is to stay off of drugs, especially marijuana. No matter what other factors affect a person’s life, including trauma, it’s best if you warn people to stay away from drugs if they want to stay out of psych treatment. I do think California is worse than other states in roping people into the mental health system, for whatever reason. Probably at least 1/3 of mental health issues in this country are influenced by drug use. While alcohol can result in death by binge drinking we can also teach and warn against this, while we’re warning against drug use. Please consider that it is really not moral to be experimenting and pushing a substance that clearly harms a large number of people.
It is perfectly in keeping with Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, to show that drug use creates mental illness. Though he doesn’t specifically mention suicide, he cites on p. 180, studies that show 33% to 66% of new bipolar cases were triggered by marijuana or other drug use. In Great Britain, marijuana was reclassified and then when the resulting increase in mental illness occurred, it went back to previous classification. Plus the recent National Academy of Sciences study by scientists said that marijuana use does trigger both heart attacks and schizophrenia.
The people on this line of comments sound very close minded. Many people have watched a loved one whose mental illness started with the use of drugs. Who is in denial here? Those who claim psychotropic drugs are harmless. Here is a new study which shows veterans who use cannabis are more likely to commit suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28295524
Although I did not support that bill, and am displeased with the Congressman’s hypocrisy, your article is not really helpful for furthering the cause of making the world a safer and better place for most people. Please try to think of ways we could have avoided the massacre in Texas or the recent shooting in California. The California shooter had an incident in January in which he stabbed someone. His mother paid his bail and got him out. She probably shouldn’t have done it. The Attorney General is launching an investigation on how Kelley, the Texas shooter, was able to purchase guns. Kelley escaped a psych ward a few years ago. It is not so simple. We have to compromise between human rights and victims’ rights, and the public has a right to be safe.
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I could not find it, have not looked hard (I am not an MD or even a psychologist, just an interested party). I believe it came from University of Manchester. From some reason that university sticks in my head. If you still can’t find I will ask my friend the pharmacologist to find it. I agree with you that there is great variability, but the pot advocates are less mellow than they claim. Here is the latest article connecting marijuana users to violence. https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/10/11/cannabis-drug-use-violence-frontiers-in-psychiatry/
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Very relevant, because there was a paper out of Great Britain that showed anti-psychotics are not effective on those who use marijuana. So whether or not the patient uses pot, quits pot or never used has to be taken into consideration.
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It is so significant, what you’re saying, because warning kids not to use marijuana is the best defense against avoiding psychotic symptoms in the first place. Unfortunately, our youth is not told this truth. If they knew the truth, many (perhaps not all who use) would never try it in the first place.
As different states mull over this issue, some state psychiatric associations are silent. They know if a state legalizes it will be good for the business of psychiatry. Again this makes psychiatrists look very unethical, as if they just want more clients. They know that psychiatry is criticized a great deal, but that the legalization of marijuana will create a greater need for more psychiatric treatments, even if they don’t know what they’re doing.
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Sorry for what you have gone through, and you’re right. It is a problem throughout the medical specialties.
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Please remember that some people actually want treatment, and that the DSM is used mainly for insurance purposes, not that insurance companies should make the determination. People really should be more careful about writing off all psychiatry and psychiatrists as evil. Some of them really want to help people. To claim Psychiatry is all a massive fraud is unproductive. That it’s methods are very flawed and tentative should be exposed. However, some of the people who are making “wrong” diagnosis are actually well-meaning. loving people. We want a system that provides the most good for highest number of people, including family members who may be affected by a person’s behavior if it’s harmful to them or others. I have met people who trust and believe their medication or treatment works. These people should not be disregarded. Bruce Springsteen is one of those people, as he explains in his biography, “Born to Run.” But more I fear the extreme charges against psychiatrists will put too many people on the defensive, and we’ll be as ineffectual at changing things as we are with changing gun laws.
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Marsha Linahan’s story and her recovery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?pagewanted=all
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So sad, as he is another in the age group of 21-35 which is dying at unprecedented rates today, whether through suicide or drug overdose. Interesting that the young woman who started Project Semi-colon, Amy Bleuel, also took her life.
If he was told that Borderline Personality Disorder is permanent, he certainly wasn’t connected to the right literature about it. BPD is certainly a condition that can be treated and outgrown. It is often outgrown without intervention. I’ve read numerous books on the subject. BPD not primarily genetic, and so I’m wondering if it was an inaccurate diagnosis. Marsha Lenahan, who invented Dialectical Behavior Therapy, dropped a bombshell a few years ago which she admitted that she was a Borderline when first hospitalized with a psychiatric issue. (The diagnosis Many or even most teens act like they have BPD at some time or another. So do drug users. I have a friend who definitely fits the criteria for BPD and she grew up in London in an orphanage (both parents died of cancer by the time she was 8, as they had lived through the ceaseless bombings in World War 2). Certainly her BPD is an adaption to all the trauma, not getting the love she needed as a child.
We need to look at societal factors, not just blaming it all on psychiatry. There is so much pain out their today and it’s getting worse, not better. I found as a young adult many things are very surprising and that life is so very different from what you think and expect, which contributes to anguish. Think of all those who came to age as the economy collapsed.
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This is too simplistic a statement. Yes madness is often a response against traumatizing circumstances. But to blame it all on quacks is wrong. Not all psychiatrists have bad intentions.
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Thanks for your explanation…..Best to you and yours also.
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By the way, Monica, I find your website, Beyond Meds, wonderful and helpful in nearly all issues, physical healing and emotional healing. Thank you for doing what you do. Loved your podcast on MIA, too. Thanks.
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Yes, I have read about Gabor Mate and his work and I am very concerned about the history of emotional pain and trauma and how it can be worked out. One trauma therapist, Janina Fisher, finds that heroin and marijuana are the two drugs that numb the pain of PTSD most effectively. Covering up the trauma doesn’t resolve the root of the trauma. And it is very disconcerting because by adding drug use to their trauma they are making it more difficult for themselves to heal from that trauma. We know victims of child abuse are more likely to abuse drugs. Bessel van der Kolk says about 50% of those who have childhood trauma will become drug or alcohol abusers. I certainly understand why. Those that don’t abuse drugs may become workaholics, exploitative of others, etc., as a coping mechanism. For treating the root of the trauma, I think we’d be better by using EMDR, biofeedback, Emotional Freedom Techniques, DBT, CBT and other therapies. Everyone has insecurities and I think some people abuse drugs not mainly because of trauma but because we live in a society that is encouraging and normalizing drug abuse and telling us that every little challenge in life, like ADHD and pain, needs to be medicated. The US society has fostered this love of drugs, and government allows advertising on TV. Would prefer if Gabor Mate did not enable drug abuse for the trauma victims, as it does not heal the root of trauma. I know there are people saying that MDMA can heal the trauma, but I wouldn’t trust that it could be done in careful, controlled settings like the testing is done. Would prefer the somatic healing strategies mentioned before to any type of drugs.
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Here’s a video about the potent pot of Colorado. They tried to get a cap on potency but it did not work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34pKwIcz80&feature=youtu.be
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The family of the Nice terrorist said that he smoked really potent marijuana while in high school and that he had his first psychotic break at age 19. Later he was taking a cocktail of other drugs.
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Psychiatrist.com published the case of a 20-year old man who went into psychosis from first time marijuana use. The paper says: “Several first-time, non-chronic cannabis users have presented to our clinic with psychosis or thought disorders lasting months after first- or second-time cannabis use.” He did not have family members with psychotic disorders. The authors work at Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx
You have to take seriously this high THC marijuana of today, even if it isn’t wax, dabs or shatter. Since it comes from Colorado and California, it’s very potent, and our kids are getting hooked on it and other drugs. We need more primary prevention, education against drug use. It would be ideal if no one had to take either Rx drugs or street drugs. To that goal, we need better recognition of traumatized children and interventions before they turn to drugs or develop mental illnesses. But not all drug users turn to drugs out of trauma; they’re doing it because our society is normalizing drug use.
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Comment found on the Internet yesterday in reaction to a story of marijuana problems in youth: “My son, who is now 28, had his first Bipolar manic episode triggered by marijuana which he first tried his junior year in college. His psychosis was so severe he didn’t recognize his father and I. Unfortunately, the psych tech who evaluated your son was a moron. It is very well known by those in the mental health field that marijuana causes psychosis in roughly 10% of the population. In fact, the psych nurse who first cared for him in the hospital told us that he sees more first-time involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations from marijuana than any other drug. It took 3 years and 18 inpatient hospitalizations to restore his sanity. We know it was “only pot” because he was drug tested in the hospital and there were never any other drugs used. Thankfully, he didn’t continue to use it, but I believe it was easier for him to reject that life because he didn’t try it until age 20. It has been medically proven than children who start are far more likely to get addicted. Watch ‘Chasing the Dragon’ on FBI.gov, most opioid and heroin addicts started with marijuana at age 11 or 12.” Why does anyone want this to happen to other people? It’s a cruel trick.
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Sorry made a mistake. It was Zyban that I took for 6 months to quit smoking awhile back, and that is also called Wellbutrin (not Zyprexa, which is a much more potent drug.
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1. No
2. No
3. No
4. No
5 & 6 Was a smoker and the only time I took an anti-depressant was for a different purpose, to quit smoking. It was Welbutrin (Zyprexa) and it did the trick. I took it for about 6 months.
7. No relatives have cancer although there have been in the past.
8. The people I know who were recommended to try marijuana for their nausea related to cancer did not like it.
9. Of course I believe opioids and cigarettes are seriously addictive. Marijuana is more of a gateway drug than either opioids or cigarettes, in my opinion.
10. Did you read Libby Stuyt’s article and read how teen girls are harmed by it? For you information, my views are from living with a family member who was seriously unhinged by marijuana use, and delusional. Most of us who have such awful reactions to being against the drug were somehow affected by it in our families. We are not close-minded, conservatives as you’d like to say. I am curious to understand why you think it is just fine to let people mess up their brains, as those people in Olympia, WA who get roped into the mental health system from doing marijuana “dabs”? I do not buy the idea that racism is the reason that pot was made illegal. Massachusetts banned it in 1911 and it wasn’t a racial issue there. It was because there are people who become psychotic from it. It is a public health and safety issue, as well as the desire to create addiction for profit, which is what the marijuana industry does.
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It is a shame that “Developmental Trauma Disorder” was not added as a condition in the DSM-5. Bessel van der Kolk and others lobbied for this with the committee and they marshaled a lot of support, such as that from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, who serve 6.1 million people annually.
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Most of the studies are not from the USA. They come from around the world. Also, the World Health Organization put out a huge study about cannabis last year with tons of footnotes. You may want to check it out. The National Academy of Sciences put out a study in January. For its final paper, it reviewed 100 studies; the 100 studies were chosen for close examination from 10,000 medical studies. I strongly disagree with the statement that cannabis has not been studied well.
This document has 13 pages which summarizes some of the studies on cannabis: http://momsstrong.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Summary-of-literature-on-marijuana-and-psychosis.pdf
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Was it the primary trauma that made you seek release in drugs? Or did you just do it for fun? Your experience is a good reason to argue to never start use of illicit drugs, and thus never be roped into the psychiatric system. Illicit drug use feeds psychiatry and gives it so much of the business, but what if people had the coping skills to never go to drug use in the first place? This comment does not excuse the use of these psych drugs because the psychiatrists need to wait and first stabilize the psychosis before even assessing if there is an underlying problem.
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It’s not only Colorado that has a big problem with “recreational” marijuana. This hospital in Washington has 1-2 new psychosis patients everyday. They stabilize the patients by giving them Risperdal, perhaps hooking them into the mental health care system. http://www.theolympian.com/news/local/marijuana/article54985485.html
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Explorer 86, I wonder why you believe all those reports? What about the fact that the survey you quote (and politicians quote it in Colorado, too) that left out the largest counties? Do you believe everyone is honest. In Pueblo where Dr. Stuyt lives, the teen use is really an ongoing social problem. So is the homelessness.
Explorer 86, there are articles by Dr. Jasmin Hurd that shows that using marijuana primes the offspring for heroin addiction. Yes, it was a gateway for those who died of drug abuse.
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Why is there such a fear and denial of the deleterious effects of marijuana? Those I know who have died of drugs began drug use with marijuana, not with opioids. Other than Chuck Sigler, I am shocked that the people writing here question the validity of a doctor runs an addictions center in a state where marijuana is commercialized. She would have the experience to know what she’s talking about. I find Roy Unger’s dismissal of the high potency marijuana disturbing. This stuff led to the horrific deaths of Daniel Juarez and Levy Thamba. In Washington it is bet/22 and 28% THC. I went into Portland dispensaries and found mostly high THC, low CBD products–nothing that was balance.
The truth about THC is Colorado had a chance to lower the THC last year, as residents introduced a ballot to cap the THC at 16%. The marijuana industry bought off the ballot. They spent about $1 million to do it. So Dr. Stuyt’s idea of limiting the THC cannot become reality. These are greedy businesses that want to make money. It’s amazing that people who see through tobacco and pharma can’t see through the pot industry. If you pay attention, there’s nothing it doesn’t heal in the industry’s opinion.
Even recently in Oregon, an 18-year-old named Brandon Powell went psychotic from dabs and then went missing. He was found dead a month later. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 15-year-old from Vancouver who threw the firecrackers that started the Eagle Creek fire was stoned. His friends also — they were giggling as they did it.
Those who write on this thread didn’t comment on the studies that linked it to teen depression, especially females, a serious issue today. Why do they not take these concerns seriously? I think it’s because pot using people have propagandized that it is not addictive and that it’s safe to drive and that it won’t give you cancer. I have friends whose children or family members have gone psychotic from marijuana use. They end up permanently disabled, and in a few cases they killed themselves or tried to do it after heavy pot use. The number of people led to suicide from marijuana use is staggering, and the connection to schizophrenia is serious. (Read Patrick Cockburn’s book, Henry’s Demons). In fact the best way to protect yourself from having mental health problems is to never use marijuana. For so many people, marijuana was the gateway to psychiatric treatments We could largely get away from the need for psychiatrists and MIA, if we educated better against pot and other drug use.
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Funny how you say the “majority of users.” What about those in the minority? Why don’t you believe in protecting them? The majority of cigarette smokers don’t get lung cancer. I think it’s like 20%. But if it can happen ever, shouldn’t people be warned? Yes, they should be. You wrote about your college friend in the 70s who went psychotic. That was with the low THC pot of the 70s. It was 4% THC in 1980, and that was higher than the 70s. Now it’s all high THC pot today. In Denver, they wanted to cap the THC at 16%, and the marijuana industry objected. This is all high potency stuff, all “hard drug” material today.
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There are many alternative treatments for vets with PTSD such as Dog Therapy and Horse Therapy, both preferable to using meds or using marijuana. In fact, Yale came out with a study that showed vets who used marijuana were less likely to recover from their PTSD and to become more violent. Marijuana does not get to the root of the problem, only treats symptoms. Masks the problem, doesn’t treat it. Same with SSRIs. So we need better treatments and these are available if you look. The only reason alcohol is more dangerous in terms of accidents is that more people use it. But now that people have been using pot for 4 years in Washington, around 23% of their fatal accidents involve drivers with marijuana in their system. You seem to be one who would prefer the mental health risks in using drugs because of the experiential benefits. I don’t believe these risks make it worth it, especially with very high-potency marijuana of today, in which people are going psychotic at higher rates than previously. Henry Cockburn, journalist Patrick Cockburn’s son smoked pot from ages 14-19 and then was diagnosed as schizophrenic at age 20. He could have killed himself. I don’t think it’s worth doing to yourself or to your family, forcing them to worry for your well-being. The point is that most teens don’t even know that they’re playing Russian Roulette by experimenting with pot and other drugs. They should at least know that they risk developing a psychotic disorder or becoming suicidal. Here’s Patrick and Henry Cockburn’s story. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1349398/Patrick-Cockburn-My-son-played-Russian-roulette-cannabis-lost.html
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On the rest of the article, psychiatric drugs are absolutely horrible. I will admit some people can do better on them, but most time the prescriptions are not warranted, and there are better ways to treat symptoms.
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Dear Monica,
I really appreciate your own website and I have searched it for thoughts about several conditions and how they can be healed by using holistic treatments. It’s excellent information. I also read your testimony on how you got roped into psychiatric treatment while using drugs, supposedly both hard and soft. You also mention difficult events in your background, something that many authors are now writing about, particularly in childhood (Adverse Childhood Experiences.)
Although not everyone goes into psychosis from drug use and a few people come out of unscathed, isn’t it best to warn people that drug use (including marijuana) may rope you into the mental health system for a very long time? It doesn’t seem that we are appropriately warning people of this potential, particularly if they begin before the brain stops developing, age 25. A friend of mine’s son went into a psychotic break from pot that lasted 10 weeks. He starting using recreationally at age 19 and then he used it for pain. She said he never would have tried it if knew that it could trigger the bipolar label/disorder. Why not warn people?
This young man became psychotic with using marijuana only one time. http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx
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Dear Will,
You wrote this article awhile ago. Today the connection between marijuana and psychosis is so clear and so widespread that any doctor who is experimenting on people with mental health challenges by giving them cannabis is very compromised. Plus normal marijuana is all high THC today. It has sent people into psychosis by using it only one time: http://www.psychiatrist.com/PCC/article/Pages/2017/v19n01/16l01993.aspx Even though you lived in San Francisco where drug use was mainstream, and where some survived it intact while others did not, you need to warn people that a way of staying out of psychiatric treatment is to stay off of drugs, especially marijuana. No matter what other factors affect a person’s life, including trauma, it’s best if you warn people to stay away from drugs if they want to stay out of psych treatment. I do think California is worse than other states in roping people into the mental health system, for whatever reason. Probably at least 1/3 of mental health issues in this country are influenced by drug use. While alcohol can result in death by binge drinking we can also teach and warn against this, while we’re warning against drug use. Please consider that it is really not moral to be experimenting and pushing a substance that clearly harms a large number of people.
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It is perfectly in keeping with Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, to show that drug use creates mental illness. Though he doesn’t specifically mention suicide, he cites on p. 180, studies that show 33% to 66% of new bipolar cases were triggered by marijuana or other drug use. In Great Britain, marijuana was reclassified and then when the resulting increase in mental illness occurred, it went back to previous classification. Plus the recent National Academy of Sciences study by scientists said that marijuana use does trigger both heart attacks and schizophrenia.
The people on this line of comments sound very close minded. Many people have watched a loved one whose mental illness started with the use of drugs. Who is in denial here? Those who claim psychotropic drugs are harmless. Here is a new study which shows veterans who use cannabis are more likely to commit suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28295524
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