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The longer teenagers smoked, the more their mental health was affected, study showed
The use of marijuana over a long period of time can result in increase one's chances of developing hallucinations, delusions and psychosis, a recent study indicates.
For the study, researchers in Australia interviewed almost 3,100 young adults whose average age was 20 years old regarding use of marijuana. Nearly 18 percent of the study participants reported using the drug for a maximum of three years, about 16 percent reported using it for four to five years, and just over 14 percent said they were using the drug for at least six years.
On a diagnostic interview made for the study, 65 of those who participated in the study had been given a diagnosis of "non-affective psychosis" like schizophrenia, and 233 had shown one or more positive items for hallucination.
The researchers discovered that there was a link connecting duration of marijuana use to mental health.
According to Dr. John McGrath, of the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, Park Centre for Mental Health in Wacol, and his team, in comparison to those who had never used marijuana, "young adults who had six or more years since first use of cannabis [i.e., who commenced use when around 15 years or younger] were twice as likely to develop a non-affective psychosis and were four times as likely to have high scores on the Peters et al Delusions Inventory [a measure of delusion]," The researchers wrote that there existed a 'dose-response' association between the "variables of interest: the longer the duration since the first cannabis use, the higher the risk of psychosis-related outcomes."
The new study was released online March 1and will be appear in the May print issues of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
However, the researchers noted that the relationship between psychosis and use of marijuana is not straightforward. They found that people who had been having hallucinations during their younger years also had higher tendencies of having used marijuana longer and to had used the drug more often.
According to the authors of the study, this is indicative of the intricacy of the association: "those individuals who were vulnerable to psychosis [i.e., those who had isolated psychotic symptoms] were more likely to commence cannabis use, which could then subsequently contribute to an increased risk of conversion to a non-affective psychotic disorder," they wrote.
In their conclusion, the study authors said that more research is necessary in order to grasp a clearer understanding regarding the mechanisms working behind the relationship between psychosis and marijuana use.
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