The association between cannabis use and the development of medical and psychiatric disorders, including psychosis and schizophrenia, has been investigated in epidemiological, laboratory, and genetic studies.[5] However, part of the difficulty in these studies is the complexity of cannabis, which comprises more than 400 different component chemicals – any of which may, in principle, interact with the body to produce an effect.[5] More research is needed to understand the interaction of the different components of cannabis with other risk factors for psychosis.[5]
Reference:
[1] Semple DM, McIntosh AM, Lawrie SM. Cannabis as a risk factor for psychosis: systematic review. J Psychopharmacol 2005; 19 (2): 187–194.
[2] Vaucher J, Keating BJ, Lasserre AM, et al. Cannabis use and risk of schizophrenia: a mendelian randomization study. Mol Psychiatry 2018; 23 (5): 1287–1292.
[3] Ryan JE, Veliz P, McCabe SE, et al. Association of early onset of cannabis, cigarette, other drug use and schizophrenia or psychosis. Schizophr Res 2020; 215: 482–484.
[4] Ferland JN, Hurd YL. Deconstructing the neurobiology of cannabis use disorder. Nat Neurosci 2020; 23 (5): 600–610.
[5] Radhakrishnan R, Guloksuz S, D’Souza DC, van Os J. Editorial: Gone to pot: examining the association between cannabis use and medical/psychiatric disorders. Front Psychiatry 2022; 13: 837757.
[6] Di Forti M, Quattrone D, Freeman TP, et al.; EU-GEI WP2 Group. The contribution of cannabis use to variation in the incidence of psychotic disorder across Europe (EU-GEI): a multicentre case-control study. Lancet Psychiatry 2019; 6 (5): 427–436.
[7] Pasman JA, Verweij KJH, Gerring Z, et al. GWAS of lifetime cannabis use reveals new risk loci, genetic overlap with psychiatric traits, and a causal influence of schizophrenia. Nat Neurosci 2018; 21 (9): 1161–1170.
