Regular Marijuana Use Ruins Young Men’s Mental Health says Study
EDITOR’S NOTE: If young Rhode Islanders are not already dealing with enough emotional stress from what they are being taught in schools and from what they see on social media, television, or the life-like games they play … those who regularly use weed are apparently putting themselves at even great risk of emotional instability.
The below commentary was originally published by the NY Post Editorial Board, May 2023
Oops: A massive new study proves the normalization of cannabis use is an ongoing social disaster. You’ve got to be under the influence — of toxic ideology, if not pot itself — to ignore the evidence.
Researchers analyzing the health data of 6.9 million people have linked weed use to hugely increased mental-illness rates among adolescent males — including as much as a shocking 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men.
The trend represents not just greater use, but the increasing potency of weed and weed products. That will only keep rising as the profit motive and industrialization of production, now that it’s so widely legalized, promote delivery of ever-more concentrated THC (the psychoactive chemical in weed) to users.
Schizophrenia is one of the most serious, and tragic, psychiatric disorders. It can be treated, but patients often go off their meds, become homeless or semi-homeless and terrorize public spaces before harming or killing themselves or others.
So the sheer size of the study and the magnitude of the effect should make the nearly 70% of Americans who generally back legalization take a hard look in the mirror. Including policymakers.
A new study found a link between marijuana use and increasing mental-illness rates among adolescent males.
Here in New York, the rollout of legal weed has been an utter disaster. With few legit shops, illegal ones have sprung up everywhere. That’s a far cry from the “equity” paradise left-wingers in Albany promised from legalization.
And there’s zero way to ensure the shops are following the law on selling only to over-21s.
But the larger problem is the normalization of weed. Above all for impressionable teen males, precisely the group most at risk here. The numbers prove it.
Emergency calls related to pot use among 6- to 18-year-olds have jumped 245%since 2000.
At one NYC addiction clinic alone, 95% of recent admissions were driven by cannabis. Anti-drug laws hold society together. Abandoning them doesn’t create equity: It worsens everyone’s quality of life. The new study shows it wrecks people’s mental health, too.
So remind us:
Exactly -what is the justification for continuing on this path?
