People think cannabis is a 'danger' to mental health. Now 'danger' is a relative term I'm sure we would all agree. To some, crossing the road or driving down the road is a 'dangerous' activity. However to others, they would consider this relatively benign and only label activities such as skydiving or formula one racing as 'dangerous'. So, in order to understand just how dangerous cannabis is, you need to get it into perspective by comparing it to the relative harms of other drugs, or other activities. Now I've explained why I'm going to mention the relative harms of other drugs, people won't be dismissive by claiming that it's about cannabis and not other drugs and that it's irrelevant, because it is.
Now this data is not cherry picked but comes from reviews of large numbers of separate studies.
- The relative risk of psychosis caused by alcohol in 2% in all users who drink (Korsakoff's psychosis). This causal link has been demonstrated time and time again and there's wide consensus about this amongst mental health professionals. I might add that this risk can be offset with thiamine treatment and better nutrition. I wish more drinkers would do this but that's besides the point.
- 80%-90% of schizophrenics or ppl with psychosis smoke tobacco (correlation)
- Cannabis 0.003%-0.013%. Comes from a study by prof Glen Lewis at Uni of Cardiff where he did a systematic review where he took all the published research and did an average of all the results. So in order to stop one incidence of psychosis, you would probably have to stop 30,000 people smoking it ever in their life.
With cannabinoids such as CBD showing antipsychotic properties it is possible that high CBD strains could actually be beneficial for people suffering from mental illness.
If you're worried about anxiety and paranoia, I would go against the grain and recommend what us westerners would consider 'sativa' strains that are used to make charas, which are high in CBD i.e. landrace strains in particular from places like Lebanon. Indica strains commonly grown by westerners are
not high in CBD.
If you have psychosis or schizophrenia it's probably not a good idea to be using any psychoactive drugs. That said, it is important to acknowledge that there
are schizophrenics that benefit from smoking certain medicinal strains and that the drug doesn't effect everyone the same way. So to say nobody with schizophrenia should ever smoke wouldn't be right.
Basically what I'm trying to say, is if you've got shizophrenia, fair enough, you might want to be cautious. But if not, please, get real.