https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30048-3/fulltext
Comment; Wow! Frightening! Cannabis potency continues to increase and the rate of new episode of first time psychosis is increasing even faster. This IS a public health problem as it will greatly increase the expenses for health care for a totally preventable problem. If it’s going to be legalized, a high enough tax needs to be added to cover the cost of antipsychotic medications for users.
Summary
Cannabis use is associated with increased risk of later psychotic disorder but whether it affects incidence of the disorder remains unclear. We aimed to identify patterns of cannabis use with the strongest effect on odds of psychotic disorder across Europe and explore whether differences in such patterns contribute to variations in the incidence rates of psychotic disorder.
Methods
We included patients aged 18–64 years who presented to psychiatric services in 11 sites across Europe and Brazil with first-episode psychosis and recruited controls representative of the local populations. We applied adjusted logistic regression models to the data to estimate which patterns of cannabis use carried the highest odds for psychotic disorder. Using Europe-wide and national data on the expected concentration of ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the different types of cannabis available across the sites, we divided the types of cannabis used by participants into two categories: low potency (THC São Paulo Research Foundation, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London and the NIHR BRC at University College London, Wellcome Trust.