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Cannabis-induced psychosis has reached crisis levels, forcing the NHS [National Health Service] to open the first clinic specifically treating addicts of the mind-altering drug, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The clinic has been launched by a leading psychiatrist who warns that psychosis among users of skunk – a very strong strain of cannabis flooding the streets – has become ‘a crisis that we can simply no longer ignore’, with tens of thousands of people affected.
Dr Di Forti, a consultant adult psychiatrist and lecturer at King’s College London, said she decided to launch the clinic after being overwhelmed by the number of psychosis patients with a history of cannabis use.
‘It became ridiculous how many psychosis patients were also cannabis smokers,’ she said.
‘It got to the point where two-thirds of my psychosis patients had a history of cannabis use.’
Talking about the former trainee teacher, Dr Di Forti said: ‘He has a degree and professional skills but because he’s stoned all day, he can’t even read a book at the moment. He was training to be a teacher before cannabis took over his life but right now his main goal is simply to be able to use his brain again.’
Calls for the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use have grown in the last year, helped by the Government permitting its limited use for medical treatment.
But Dr Di Forti warned against following the lead of Canada and the U.S. states of California and Colorado, where legalisation has seen usage increase.
‘My concern is that there is no way you can legalise recreational cannabis without cannabis use going up, as has happened in America, and there is a potential for a lot of people to come to harm,’ she said.
Treatment comprises a mix of anti-psychotic medication, sessions with therapists, and motivational meetings to wean patients off cannabis.
Dr Di Forti said: ‘The problem has been that while you’re trying to do all these things to help patients with their psychotic episodes, they are smoking from half-an-hour after they wake up until just before they go to bed, so they’re basically stoned all the time.
‘Trying to reintegrate them by getting them to join a local football team or do an art class is very difficult. Often they will be so stoned that they will have no motivation to address their psychosis. That is something we have to work through.’
For complete article - The Mail on Sunday (UK), June 30, 2019
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April 9, 2019 -- When he arrived at the hospital by ambulance, the 70-year-old man said he felt like he was dying. He was pale, nauseated, and reported severe chest pain. "He had had hallucinations at home," says his doctor, Alexandra Saunders, MD, chief medical resident for Dalhousie University in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Soon, the medical team confirmed he’d had a heart attack.
He had eaten a marijuana-laced lollipop, given to him by a friend who thought it might help him sleep. "I don’t know if we can say it caused the heart attack,'' Saunders says, citing the patient's pre-existing heart disease. ''We don't have enough guidance to say what a safe dose would be."
Other health experts share her concern over CBD edibles, including chocolates, brownies and other baked goods, snacks, drinks, and even pizza.
The concern over marijuana edibles is from getting too much THC. In Colorado, where recreational use of marijuana is legal, researchers reviewed more than 2,500 cannabis-related emergency room visits from 2012 through 2016 and found that the percentage of visits was higher for inhaled cannabis, but that those using edibles were more likely to have psychiatric and cardiovascular problems.
Product labeling is an issue, too, for both hemp and marijuana CBD edibles, experts say. Consumers can't be sure that what the label lists is actually in the CBD edible. In a 2015 study, researchers evaluated 75 marijuana edibles and found only 17% accurately labeled.
Despite the popularity, neither type of CBD edible -- from hemp or marijuana -- is considered legal in the eyes of the federal government…the FDA says, it is not lawful to introduce food with added CBD or THC into interstate commerce, or to market the products either as dietary supplements or as an addition to them.
For Vital juxtapose – Read The Bad Science of Medical Cannabis
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Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science recently rolled up their sleeves to investigate CBD hepatotoxicity in mice. What they found was while this cannabis derivative is gaining significant recognition as of late in the world of wellness, people that use CBD are at an elevated risk for liver toxicity.
The findings, which were published earlier this year in the journal Molecules, suggest that while people may be using CBD as a safer alternative to conventional pain relievers, like acetaminophen, the compound may actually be just as harmful to their livers.
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OBJECTIVE: To examine prospective associations between cannabis use and risk of mental health and substance use disorders in the general adult population.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Within the general population, cannabis use is associated with an increased risk for several substance use disorders. Physicians and policy makers should take these associations of cannabis use under careful consideration.
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Calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms have risen in Colorado and Washington.
DENVER — The first two states to legalize recreational marijuana are starting to grapple with teenagers’ growing use of highly potent pot, even as both boost the industry and reap huge tax windfalls from its sales.
Though the legal purchase age is 21 in Colorado and Washington, parents, educators and physicians say youths are easily getting hold of edibles infused with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component that causes a high, and concentrates such as “shatter,” a brittle, honey-colored substance that is heated and then inhaled through a special device.
Each poses serious risks to adolescents’ physical and mental health.
“Underage kids have unbelievable access to nuclear-strength weed,” said Andrew Brandt, a Boulder, Colo., software executive whose son got hooked while in high school.
With some marijuana products averaging 68 percent THC – exponentially greater than the pot baby boomers once smoked – calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms have risen. In the Denver area, visits to Children’s Hospital Colorado facilities for treatment of cyclic vomiting, paranoia, psychosis and other acute cannabis-related symptoms jumped to 777 in 2015, from 161 in 2005.
The increase was most notable in the years following legalization of medical sales in 2009 and retail use in 2014, according to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health published in 2018.
“Horrible things are happening to kids,” said psychiatrist Libby Stuyt, who treats teens in southwestern Colorado and has studied the health impacts of high-potency marijuana. “I see increased problems with psychosis, with addiction, with suicide, with depression and anxiety.”