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Comment by dejb | Hacker News Reader

OK if we are talking about anecdotal evidence then how about a colleague of mine who smoked pot every day while doing his PHD. He spent several years doing very little work and then ended up having a major psychotic episode. Without people to support you this sort of thing could entirely derail your life. Fortunately he managed to complete the PHD only after getting off the pot.

Having known a number of people who have smoked daily for periods in their lives and suffered from mental health issues, I have no doubts that heavy pot use contributes to mental health problems.

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I too have known people like you describe here and can say that it is more likely that they began habitually smoking marijuana because of some latent psychological conditions - and not that they formed these conditions as a result.

Sure, marijuana may exaggerate seemingly innate personality characteristics, but create them? Highly unlikely. Its all about the individual's personality and mindset - same reason some individuals develop PTSD, while others walk away from the exact same traumatic experience with no lasting psychological scars.

I feel confidant in saying that there are far more chronic users of marijuana who are otherwise mentally healthy than there are users who are teetering on a "major psychotic episode" - a sign that people such as your colleague are the minority, unstable demographic of the population. Also, it is far easier for individuals who 'freak out' and have embarrassing 'psychotic snaps' to point to an inanimate, socially demonized substance to blame rather than to find and accept blame with 'self'.

From Biopsychology by Pinel, J:

"... many people believe that marijuana causes mental illness, in particular, schizophrenia. Several correlational studies have shown that heavy marijuana users are more likely to be subsequently be [sic] diagnosed with schizophrenia... However, there is no way for correlational studies to rule out the possibility that the correlation between heavy marijuana use and schizophrenia occurs because people who are predisposed to develop schizophrenia also tend to use marijuana."

I've never used an illegal drug, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

It may not be information, but it is most certainly data.

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