Study: Dopers Grow Psychotic

So says the British Medical Journal Lancet in a report published today. The study looked at mental health data from tens of thousands of people who had used marijuana for periods ranging from one to 27 years.

Dr. Stanley Zammit and colleagues from the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University conducted the research.

They looked for psychotic illnesses as well as cognitive disorders including delusions and hallucinations, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, neuroses and suicidal tendencies.

They found that people who used marijuana had roughly a 40 percent higher chance of developing a psychotic disorder later in life. The overall risk remains very low.

Therefore, if you know a dope smoker that appears wacky, maybe the behavior is caused by the marijuana. And, there's more.

The scientists found a more disturbing outlook for "heavy users" of pot, those who used it daily or weekly: Their risk for psychosis jumped to a range of 50 percent to 200 percent.

So, in conclusion:

"We've reached the end of the road with these kinds of studies," said Dr. Robin Murray of King's College, who had no role in the Lancet study. "Experts are now agreed on the connection between cannabis and psychoses. What we need now is for 14-year-olds to know it."

In the U.K., the government will soon reconsider how marijuana should be classified in its hierarchy of drugs. In 2004, it was downgraded and penalties for possession were reduced. Many expect marijuana will be bumped up to a class "B" category, with offenses likely to lead to arrests or longer jail sentences.

Wow! This news will not sit well with the stoner crowd.

Of course, now we can anticipate a newly defined mental illness. Logically then, expect government funding to be allocated for treatment of cannabis-acquired cognitive abnormality (CACA) at special clinics. It's also possible that CACA would at some point be classified as disabling and, therefore, sufferers would be entitled to protected status in society.

While I've always thought that heavy marijuana smoking just made people stupid, brain prospectors now have evidence which proves that dope smokers are not stupid, they're mentally ill. This is quite fortuitous since mental health professionals can't charge handsome counseling fees when treating people deemed simply stupid, they also must be ill.