Adolescents who use cannabis could face a significantly higher risk of developing serious psychiatric disorders by young adulthood, according to a large new study published today in JAMA Health Forum. The longitudinal study followed 463,396 adolescents ages 13 to 17 through age 26 and found that past-year cannabis use during adolescence was associated with a significantly higher risk of incident psychotic (doubled), bipolar (doubled), depressive and anxiety disorders.
The study analyzed electronic health record data from routine pediatric visits between 2016 and 2023. Cannabis use preceded psychiatric diagnoses by an average of 1.7 to 2.3 years. The study’s longitudinal design strengthens evidence that adolescent cannabis exposure is a potential risk factor for developing mental illness.
Unlike many prior studies, the research examined any self-reported past-year cannabis use, with universal screening of teens during standard pediatric care, rather than focusing only on heavy use or cannabis use disorder.
The study also found that cannabis use was more common among adolescents enrolled in Medicaid and those living in more socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods, raising concerns that expanding cannabis commercialization could exacerbate existing mental health disparities.
Yes yes, ofc they “controlled for”. It’s always the same argument with these studies. And you know it isn’t remotely enough so you appeal to authority by saying “reputable universities and institutions”, as if there hasn’t been literally hundreds of billions put into anti-cannabis research and there’s still only massively vague correlations instead of being able to show a single causation. Unlike with alcohol, which you can clearly demonstrate a sudden onset psychosis from pretty much anyone as long as you’re giving them something above say 8% ABV for a few hours on an empty stomach.
Yet you’ll also be able to find millions of people smoking weed daily without issues. You can’t say that for alcohol. Yet the implication is still one of “we can’t legalise more drugs” as if legalising made people less aware of the risks and less likely to abuse those substances, when we *know" it doesn’t. It actually does the opposite. Prohibition increases abuse and associated risks.
But hey, let’s spend another day arguing about how theres definitely a “link” between cannabis use and mental health disorders, even though not a single person can say what the link is how it forms or why.
Last time I did it I ended up having to read and Google all sorts of “reputable institutions” and once I did find the material, turns out even though they claimed to have controlled for all of those aspects, every single cannabis user was from a lower socioeconomic group than the control groups, which were in areas which were distinctly higher in average socioeconomic class. Then they just claimed that they had “controlled”. They clearly hadn’t. They had done the exact opposite.
Edit and just to make it clear, ofc any substance use has risks. Caffeine moreso than cannabis, for real.