Somebody can have a disposition for psychotic illness and live a whole lifetime without it manifesting. Drugs could be the trigger that destroys that person's life. Maybe these drugs should be allowed to be used in certain clinical settings, but I wish they had a better grasp on the risk factors for psychosis, so they knew who not to give it to. Certainly they should be kept illegal for recreational use, including marijuana.
I'm against criminalization but I'm also against widespread recreational use until we have a technology to tell you if you have a predisposition or not. I've seen a lot of people's lives ruined by psychosis, and all but one were chronic cannabis users for 1-2 years prior. A causal relationship has been established. It gradually alters brain function over time. For some people (arguably 2%), this eventually pushes them over a threshold for psychosis. It seems there's no way of knowing in advance if you will be one of them.
Well, if your life is fucked up and not in a stable mindset before deciding to take them, or there's a history of mental illness in your family, those would be some red flags to seriously consider before purchasing your ticket.
Exactly. And yet, those are precisely the kind of people who are the most attracted to the substance.
Previously it was suspected to be a mere correlation -- that there's something about underlying mental disorders that draws one to cannabis, rather than cannabis causing mental disorders. In recent years, they have established a causal relationship cannabis -> psychosis (assuming the predisposition is there, of course).
