Adolescents who use cannabis could face a significantly higher risk of developing serious psychiatric disorders by young adulthood, according to a large new study published today in JAMA Health Forum. The longitudinal study followed 463,396 adolescents ages 13 to 17 through age 26 and found that past-year cannabis use during adolescence was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident psychotic (doubled), bipolar (doubled), depressive and anxiety disorders.
The study analyzed electronic health record data from routine pediatric visits between 2016 and 2023. Cannabis use preceded psychiatric diagnoses by an average of 1.7 to 2.3 years. The study’s longitudinal design strengthens evidence that adolescent cannabis exposure is a potential risk factor for developing mental illness.
Unlike many prior studies, the research examined any self-reported past-year cannabis use, with universal screening of teens during standard pediatric care, rather than focusing only on heavy use or cannabis use disorder.
The study also found that cannabis use was more common among adolescents enrolled in Medicaid and those living in more socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods, raising concerns that expanding cannabis commercialization could exacerbate existing mental health disparities.
"I don't like the result of this study so its random and wrong."
Lol. Lmao even. What was that about tales as old as time?
There has been many, many, many decades of attempts, since the 1920s, at deeply flawed studies to prove some weak link between marijuana use and some bad outcome. Of course, it's quickly found out that it was using rats, or some other small animal using fucked-up dosage:mass ratios, or the sample size was 20, or they were using the (literally) rotted garbage that was the government-grown marijuana stash, or it was funded by some DARE group, or funded by the nicotine industry, or the alcohol industry, or they didn't prove causation, or they forgot to factor mental health, or social class, or racial factors, or a thousand other obvious problems.
I'm not going to go around and say cannibus doesn't have its problems. But, given the track record of obviously flawed studies that land on this forum, and even more so with cannibus research, I'll default to a position of extreme skeptism until proven otherwise.
Cool, maybe that's true.
But ancient history isn't relevant and doesn't change the fact that cannabis use actually has legitimately been strongly correlated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.