AlternativeFreePress.com

By now you may have seen a headline “Pot can pose psychosis risk for teens with developing brains: researchers” or “Marijuana research says psychosis in teens who smoke pot way up”. Notice that the headlines are careful to include words such as “can”, “researchers”, or “says” because it’s just 2 people giving their opinion, it’s not a proven fact. If these media outlets had published a headline which read “Pot poses psychosis risk for teens with developing brains” or “psychosis in teens who smoke pot way up” they would likely be sued by several medical marijuana corporations and forced to print retractions, because there is a lack of science to prove these claims.

We are told there is “a growing body of research” but are provided ZERO specific examples.

These two researchers just give their opinions and cite examples they claim to have witnessed… but appear to not even be questioning whether this “marijuana” was organic cannabis, or if it was sprayed with something or if it was a synthetic substitute. As long as cannabis is illegal and teens are buying their pot from illegal sources, we can’t know what they are smoking. Especially with the many new research chemicals being sold in response to prohibition, teens are often unknowingly consuming cocktails of dangerous chemicals. Without a legal source of organic cannabis, teens will continue to be at risk of consuming unknown chemicals causing unknown damage to their bodies.

One of these asinine articles cites a discredited study regarding IQ being affected by cannabis. The Washington Post can clear that up for us:

Then, a follow-up study published 6 months later in the same journal found that the Duke paper failed to account for a number of confounding factors: “Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature,” it concluded.

Now, a new study out from the University College of London provides even stronger evidence that the Duke findings were flawed. The study draws on a considerably larger sample of adolescents than the Duke research – 2,612 children born in the Bristol area of the U.K. in 1991 and 1992. Researchers examined children’s IQ scores at age 8 and again at age 15, and found “no relationship between cannabis use and lower IQ at age 15,” when confounding factors – alcohol use, cigarette use, maternal education, and others – were taken into account. Even heavy marijuana use wasn’t associated with IQ.

UPDATED June 15, 2015:
(This article was written hastily, and should have originally included a link to our previous related article) :
Study says alcohol can lead to psychosis, but not cannabis

The University of Calgary 4-year study entitled “Impact of substance use on conversion to psychosis in youth at clinical high risk of psychosis” determined that cannabis did not increase the likelihood of psychosis. On the other hand, the study suggests that alcohol use could increase the likelihood of psychosis. The Abstract reads: “Results revealed that low use of alcohol, but neither cannabis use nor tobacco use at baseline, contributed to the prediction of psychosis in the CHR sample.”

Written by Alternative Free Press

Claims pot causes “psychosis in teens” are asinine by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

RELATED:
Study says alcohol can lead to psychosis, but not cannabis