SSRI Cannabis Psychosis

"Combine antidepressants plus marijuana and its 66 cannabinoids and you've got a mystery stew for the brain ... Taking prescription antidepressants and simultaneously self-medicating with marijuana is not a good idea."

Full article here.

super-potent cannabis

"The average psychotic cannabis user is more likely to use skunk.”

"One preliminary study compared cannabis users with just tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] in their hair samples - typical of skunk use - and those with both cannabidiol [CBD] and THC, which showed that they were smoking old-fashioned cannabis. Those with just THC were more likely to show psychotic symptoms. Another preliminary study showed that CBD seemed to have some effect when given as an antipsychotic, and could even block the effects of THC."
- Professor Robin Murray is a consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry and leading researcher into the effects of cannabis on mental health

“I would err on the side of caution. There is still not enough known about skunk but the evidence suggests that it can trigger psychotic symptoms in susceptible individuals."
- Dr Paul Broks, MSc, DPhil, CPsychol, Neuropsychologist

A look at skunk here and here.

skunk

Image source here.

"I thought it was perfectly harmless. I thought I'd prefer him to do that more than getting drunk. I support legalisation, not because I think young people take a great deal of notice of the law – they don't – but because I think that with legalisation comes control. Give people more information: vulnerable young people need to know what this drug can do. If anything makes me really angry it is that this is such a polarised debate, an immature debate. It's either that cannabis is good or it's bad."

For Tory MP Charles Walker, the chair of the all-party parliamentary committee looking at children and cannabis, the damage that has been done both by the historical and generational tolerance of cannabis and by the government's out-of-date attitudes has meant that a seriously dangerous drug is not recognised as such.

"I have met and spoken to so many families who have been devastated – I mean devastated – by this drug," he said. "It is clearly highly addictive both psychically and psychologically and the damage is terrible: high-achieving children turning into shadows of their former selves and creating widespread misery."

"I think there is a historical legacy, which is why cannabis has been so downgraded by people in their 40s and 50s like me who don't understand that we are facing a different drug from the one everyone smoked in their youth. I wish we could change its name from cannabis to emphasise that."

Cannabis: a history

• Cannabis has been used for more than 4,000 years, including for medicinal purposes in Indian, Chinese and middle eastern civilisations. In China, it has been used to treat such conditions as malaria, constipation and rheumatism.

• Doctors in the west began to take an interest in its medicinal use in the middle of the 19th century. Queen Victoria was prescribed cannabis by her doctor to relieve period pain.

• The drug was outlawed in the United Kingdom in 1928, following an international drugs conference in Geneva, at which an Egyptian delegate claimed that it was a threat to society and as dangerous as opium.

• Recreational use in the UK began in the 1950s as migrants from the Caribbean arrived. It soared in popularity during the "flower power" years in the 1960s.

• A Home Office investigation in 1968 concluded: "There is no evidence that this activity is causing violent crime or aggression, anti-social behaviour, or is producing in otherwise normal people conditions of dependence or psychosis requiring medical treatment."

• Advanced cultivation techniques have led to an increase in potency over the past 20 years. Average levels of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient) in marijuana sold in America rose from 3.5% in 1988 to 8.5% in 2006. "Skunk" is the most potent strain and now dominates the UK market, according to Home Office research.

Excerpts from The Gaurdian.

An earlier reference to Cannabis Psychosis here.

Guide to Smoking Pot Around the World

The rundown here.

cannabis and psychosis

Cannabidiol Or THC?

Getting serious about understanding how marijuana works - and doesn't.

Cannabis Psychosis

Excessive cannabis use can lead to psychosis as explained, for example, in 2007 here and here, in 2005, 1994, 1993, and 1982. 

... scientists found a more disturbing outlook for "heavy users" of pot, those who used it daily or weekly: Their risk for psychosis jumped to a range of 50 percent to 200 percent.

As well, combining antidepressants with cannabis can yield acute psychosis in which confusion, amnesia, delusions, hallucinations, anxiety, agitation and hypomanic symptoms predominate; discussed here and here.