Marijuana Use in Teens | An adolescent’s risk of recurrent psychotic-like experiences jumps 159% when marijuana use shifts from occasional to daily or even weekly use...
...according to a study published online in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
“Our findings confirm that becoming a more regular marijuana user during adolescence is, indeed, associated with a risk of psychotic symptoms,” said lead author Josiane Bourque, a doctoral student in the department of psychiatry at the Université de Montréal, Quebec.
The findings stem from annual assessments of 2566 Canadian adolescents aged 13 through 16 years. A steeper increase in cannabis use over the 4-year span, researchers found, was linked with a higher likelihood of moderately increasing psychotic-like experiences.
“To clearly understand the impact of these results, it is essential to first define what psychotic-like experiences are: namely, experiences of perceptual aberration, ideas with unusual content, and feelings of persecution,” said Bourque. “Although they may be infrequent and thus not problematic for the adolescent, when these experiences are reported continuously, year after year, then there’s an increased risk of a first psychotic episode or another psychiatric condition.”
Emerging symptoms of depression, researchers found, best explained the link between cannabis use and psychotic-like experiences. However, the study also found the development of inhibitory control was negatively affected by increased cannabis use.
“Our results show that while marijuana use is associated with a number of cognitive and mental health symptoms, only an increase in symptoms of depression – such as negative thoughts and low mood – could explain the relationship between marijuana use and increasing psychotic-like experiences in youth,” Bourque said.
Targeting depression symptoms, researchers concluded, could have a preventive effect in the population.
