From my short 1 month experiene working in a clinical ward: if young people got brought in due to a psychosis, in the case that it was drug induced, at least 50% were long term cannabis users (followed by alcohol abuse, then some psychoactive drugs, and heroin/crack).
Cannabis definitely is not the vanilla drug so many people make it out to be.
Excellent anecdata. If the effect is so striking, I wonder why it has so stubbornly eluded all the scientific studies seeking to find a causation? Could it be the case that the correlation you describe is caused by one or more "hidden variables"?
Yeah, but by being on a ward you’re inherently suffering from selection bias - you’re only seeing the people who have a problem of one variety of another. From what I understand cannabis is fairly effective at triggering latent psychosis, rather than being the causative agent itself.
I smoke weed like others smoke cigarettes, and while I may find it trickier to do QM in my head while I’m high, and often lose my train, I still can. Some tasks, like coding, become easier - I gain a myopic focus, as it closes out past and future and makes me present.
On the other hand, I’ll also sign off client phone calls with “love you!” and will screw up trivial tasks like pouring a cup of coffee.
The current trend of THC only and cutting out the CBD can't help.
CBD is a natural antipsychotic [1], and I can say the one time I had a really bad prolonged psychosis episode with weed, it was when I thought the CBD was interfering with a medication I was on for Crohn's and decided to cut it out but still use high dose THC for potential immune suppressant effects [2] daily during my flare.
Bad idea. Definitely lost my grip on reality.
Ever since I never drop below a 2:1 CBD:THC ratio and over the years I haven't had anything coming even close to what happened before.
It's astonishing that the current trend is THC without CBD with so little demand for combined product. For everyone touting it as a "natural drug" they sure don't have any issue messing around with the natural balance to create some scary strains.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the current 'conspiracy' trend is in part due to increased THC usage. When I had used it nightly at high doses for only two weeks there was no way I could effectively discern what was plausible or implausible on the Internet. And it took a fair while after stopping to get back to a place of normalcy with that aspect too.
anecdotally, I feel like I know many more regular smokers than regular drinkers.
That said, this could also be selection bias.
I am currently living clean, but have had multiple periods of being stoned basically 24/7 beforehand, whilst always having a very healthy relationship to alcohol (a few drinks socially, once per week or less). It's possible that the people I attract into my life tend to be similar to me.
Cannabis definitely is not the vanilla drug so many people make it out to be.
*EDIT: I get the selection bias now, sorry.