FILE – A person smokes marijuana in lower Manhattan outside the first legal dispensary for recreational marijuana in New York on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. Veterinarians are growing alarmed by an apparent rise in marijuana poisonings among dogs that ingest discarded joints and edibles on city sidewalks. Canines are eating unfinished joints while strolling with their owners, and more are showing up in animal emergency rooms. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey) Ted Shaffrey/AP

The alarming link between schizophrenia and marijuana

Washington Examiner May 17, 06:28 AM May 17, 07:02 AM Video Embed

The more marijuana is consumed, the more evidence mounts up that it ruins lives.

As more states legalize marijuana, and as popular culture increasingly treats the narcotic as though it were harmless, it becomes increasingly apparent that using it involves serious risks.

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Lawmakers should stop decriminalizing recreational marijuana use, and allow it only as prescribed, via strict protocols, by licensed medical doctors. Even then, its use should be a last resort.

The latest worrisome study, released earlier this month, was conducted by researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark. Its most compelling finding is that “as many as 30% of cases of schizophrenia among men aged 21-30 might have been prevented by averting cannabis use disorder.”

Schizophrenia, defined by the National Institutes of Mental Health, is “a mental disorder characterized by disruptions in thought processes, perceptions, emotional responsiveness, and social interactions … Schizophrenia is typically persistent and can be both severe and disabling.”

It can be triggered by heavy pot use when it might otherwise not develop at all.

“The entanglement of substance use disorders and mental illnesses is a major public health issue, requiring urgent action and support for people who need it,” said NIDA Director and study coauthor Nora Volkow.

The existence of a link between marijuana use and schizophrenia has been known for decades, but the new study not only reaffirms the connection but also shows the problem’s growing severity, especially among young men. It blames the “increasing prevalence” of the problem on the “higher potency of cannabis” typically used today compared to typical street marijuana half a century ago.

Crucially, said Carsten Hjorthøj, the study’s lead author, “Increases in the legalization of cannabis over the past few decades have made it one of the most frequently used psychoactive substances in the world, while also decreasing the public’s perception of its harm. This study adds to our growing understanding that cannabis use is not harmless.”

Schizophrenia is far from the only danger from what pop culture treats as harmless fun. Cannabis also has been definitively associated with “depression, anxiety, and suicidality” among adolescents. Its increasing public acceptance also coincided with a doubling in fatal car crashes between 2000 and 2018. Instances of pediatric marijuana poisoning have grown severalfold.

In states that legalized it, crime, including from armed crime syndicates, has increased, not decreased.

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It is almost impossible to walk on downtown streets in big cities without encountering the stench of marijuana. After the Left-liberal media crusaded for decades against tobacco, which is no more dangerous than pot, it makes no sense to promote marijuana as if it’s just a “lifestyle choice.”

The Left tendentiously demands that people “trust the science” and should therefore recognize that pot use should be discouraged in law rather than welcomed. The scientific evidence is definitive: Pot is bad for society as a whole, bad for individuals, and sometimes deadly.

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