As the increase in marijuana use among young people increased in the 1990’s, dual diagnosis treatment center researchers began work to discover whether marijuana caused depression, or if depressed persons used marijuana to self-medicate a pre-existing condition. Although some in the medical community do not believe marijuana addiction requires intense drug rehab, it is a very psychologically addictive drug that can be difficult to stop using.
Many mental health professionals now believe that psychiatrists, hospitals, and substance abuse treatment centers(especially dual diagnosis treatment centers ), can benefit by understanding the effects of marijuana on a person’s mental health, because so many patients in drug and alcohol treatment centers are poly addicted. Often, poly-addicted substance abusers use marijuana habitually with other substances, and many have co-occurring depression and anxiety symptoms.
The results of recently published studies now show that habitual marijuana use causes depression. Also, the research shows that people suffering with depression do not use marijuana more often than non-depressed people.
A related Australian study researched marijuana’s effects by interviewing 1600 14 and 15 year old girls and compiled data over a seven year period. These recently published results proved that participants reporting weekly marijuana use as teenagers were twice as likely as non-marijuana users to have depression later in life. Those women who reported daily marijuana use as teenagers were four times as likely to have symptoms of depression and anxiety later in life.
In addition to these findings, the study concluded there was no correlation between non-marijuana using participants who described symptoms of depression and anxiety as teenagers and marijuana use later in life. According to the study, this information disputes the idea that marijuana is used to self medicate depression. The researchers conclude that marijuana use actually causes these mental illnesses.
In a similar study conducted in Baltimore between1980-1996, researchers assessed marijuana use and depression. The study analyzed its participants social behaviors, mental states, and work habits over time. The research concluded that people who did not have depressive symptoms at the outset of the study, but later developed a marijuana habit exhibited depressive symptoms, including suicidal thoughts.
Dual diagnosis is a complex problem. A dual diagnosis treatment center must have highly trained and specialized staff to effectively manage the co occurance of addiction and mental illness. With proper treatment, the interaction between the addiction and the mental illness can be arrested.
