Teen Pot Use Leads to Psychotic Symptoms Later

It’s often thought of as a little harmless experimentation. Everyone does it, right? Even the current and former presidents have admitted to smoking pot. But a new Dutch study shows that smoking marijuana as a teenager or young adult raises your risk of having psychotic symptoms later in life.

Researchers found that those who started smoking pot had double the risk of developing psychotic symptoms, according to a recent report in USA Today.

"This cements much more firmly the reality that marijuana use in adolescence is a risk factor, along with the other genetic, environmental and socioeconomic risk factors, for developing psychosis," said Dr. Kathryn Kotrla, associate dean and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine in Round Rock.

The findings were first reported in the March 1 issue of the BMJ and detail the study led by Jim van Os at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The findings are based on data on about 2,000 individuals in Germany who were 14 to 24 years old when they enrolled in the study, and who were then followed for 10 years. The results seem to show that marijuana use actually precedes the onset of symptoms, suggesting a possible cause-and-effect relationship.

This is newsworthy because some 16 million people in the U.S. alone use marijuana regularly, and most started smoking in their teens. It is the third most widely used addictive substance after tobacco and alcohol.

Marijuana Use

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