It's well known that people with mental problems will use illicit drugs in hope of relieving their symptoms. My guess is that many early, heavy users of marijuana fall into that category. As you said, teenagers are usually not diagnosed with psychosis. It's hard to differentiate between mental illness and normal adolescent “insanity”.

As far as your little stories go, I have neither seen nor heard of anyone ending up in a hospital after smoking pure marijuana. The only cases I am aware of this happening, are cases in which the pot was laced with PCP or Cocaine. Which is another reason to legalize it, so we don't have people buying it off the streets and giving dealers the chance to expose them to harder more addictive substances.

Marijuana Vs. Anti-Depressants for PTSD
Marijuana Wins Hands Down

I was asked by a healthcare professional at the Portland VA Hospital if I would help PTSD Veteran Victims to get permits to use legalized medical marijuana. I already had some Veteran patients from WWII, Korea and Vietnam…

I told her yes and within two weeks I had more than 50 Nam Vets requesting my help. As part of their medical history I asked what previous medicines they had been given or prescribed…

I was astonished to review the lists. There were two main types: strong pain killers like Oxycontin and Morphine and every related pain killer.

Apparently many of these were given just to knock out the patients. These drugs are called narcotics because they CAUSE sleep.

“Most PTSD victims have insomnia or difficulty going to or staying asleep. The second type of drugs were anti-depressants. Severe pain causes depression and some do enable sleep…

I was flabbergasted to read the anti-depressant list of many patients; Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro, etc it goes on through the whole list of about 12.

The Vets were adamant about the miserable adverse side effects of both these kinds of drugs. I was familiar with the drugs like Morphine but the new class of anti-depressants had me baffled. I was also familiar with amphetamine type drugs which were stimulants which I originally assumed must be related in action to the anti-depressants.

Elavil was one of the first anti-depressants and it was a mild stimulant like a junior grade amphetamine but the newer ones were definitely in another ball park. The Vets complained that they were zombified by them and many stopped them and resorted to alcohol because of the illegality and scarceness of marijuana.

I checked my computer for anti-depressant dangers. I don’t shock easy but this was a shock. The FDA (Food & Drug Administration) reported that they caused a whole bunch of very bad adverse side effect including anxiety, depression, addiction, severe withdrawal, homicidal rage and suicide.

These PTSD Veterans didn’t need these adverse effects on top of PTSD.

Subsequent to my success with these Vets with marijuana I heard from Veterans all over the U.S. and the world that marijuana was better than both Morphine drugs and anti-depressants.”

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february1320…

The point I am trying to make with all of this info., is that while there might be some relation between Marijuana and Mental health disorders, driving people to self medicate with harder drugs probably results in much more harm to society. And even if some aren't self medicating, some are doctor shopping to stay legal and obtain drugs that are physically addictive and potentially lethal. In addition to all of this, the current laws of most states are forcing people to use dangerous drugs like Oxycontin, Paxil or other dangerous Anti-depressants or Opiate pain based medications. The list of potential side effects of most of these drugs are much more dangerous than Cannabis.

“The abuse of prescription drugs drives up costs, too. One of every five people in the United States have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons at least once in their lifetime. About one-half million hospital emergency room visits every year involve the abuse of prescription and non-prescription drugs.”

“One-fourth of drug abuse cases that end up in the emergency room involve the non-medical use of prescription and non-prescription drugs, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The problem has been getting worse, too. From 1994 to 2002, emergency room cases involving the painkiller oxycodone grew by 450 percent.”

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=139&subid=2…

Cough syrup abuse.
http://www.usatoday.com/educate/ondcp/lessons/A…

SOCIAL COSTS OF DIFFERENT DRUGS IN CANADA

In Canada a study showed that

“In terms of costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user.

On the enforcement side, costs for cannabis are the highest at $328 per user—94% of social costs for cannabis are linked to enforcement. Enforcement costs per user for alcohol are about half those for cannabis ($153), while enforcement costs for tobacco are very low.”

“Alcohol is used by a very large number of people with the vast majority of these using in low- or moderate-risk ways. Conversely, cannabis and tobacco are used by far fewer people. The majority of cannabis use is low- and moderate-risk, however, while the majority of tobacco use is high-risk.

Understanding patterns of risk in society is important. A large number of people engaging in low- or moderate-risk use can account for a large share of overall harm.5 This is the situation with alcohol. In Canada, there are many (over 21 million) low- and moderate-risk drinkers. These drinkers account for 40% to 60% of alcohol-related health and social harms.2

The situation with tobacco is very different. (In fact, tobacco use is never considered low risk, thus zero low-risk users). Here we have about four million users who account for a large proportion of the overall harms. In the case of cannabis, we have much fewer people overall using the substance across all levels of risk.”

According to above, even the low and moderate risk alcohol users account for half of the health care costs.

More from the article:

Conclusion

The harms, risks and social costs of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco vary greatly. A lot has to do with how the substances are handled legally. Alcohol and tobacco are legal substances, which explain their low enforcement costs relative to cannabis. On the other hand, the health costs per user of tobacco and alcohol are much higher than for cannabis. This may indicate that cannabis use involves fewer health risks than alcohol or tobacco. These variations in risk, harms and costs need to
be taken into account as we think about further efforts to deal with the use of these three substances in Canada. Efforts to reduce social costs related to cannabis, for example, will likely involve shifting its legal status by decriminalizing casual use, to reduce the high enforcement costs. Such a shift may be warranted given the apparent lower health risk associated with most cannabis use.

http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/publications/cannab…

Watch these if you get a chance. These are very valid reasons to why someone should have the right to smoke marijuana.

Marijuana is EXTREMELY dangerous!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCuD0Job-84

Medical Hearings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=expqlgDLZO8

The Debate in Missouri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pcoMoySqM8

Interview with a Multiple Sclerosis patient
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8_5Ebsjk8I

Should Marijuana Be Illegal For Adults?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc72uy8VSbc

As far as what is socially destructive. Isn't the current drug war on Marijuana socially destructive? It breeds violence and organized crime. Kids are exposed to the black market and dealers that do not card. Possession of marijuana charges can drastically alter someones future. They can get a felony and be prevented from obtaining financial aid. Employment opportunities could be dramatically diminished. Kids growing up with parents in prison grow up with less role models and maybe less love.

I think people should be warned of potential negative health effects, but we can ban everything in the world that is bad. Alcohol and prescription drugs are correlated with mental health problems. What about the food these days pumped with antibiotics and grown in half the time? Or all the pollution. I just find it hard to believe that they have pinpointed the variables when there are thousands at play.

I also find it a little suspicious that this information was leaked again when the Medical Marijuana movement has been picking up a lot of steam. It makes me question who funded this. Was it Big Pharma protecting their profits or the Government protecting their agendas and lobby money?

Here are some quotes from other doctors:

Colin Blakemore, PhD, Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Oxford, wrote in a Dec. 27, 2002 email to ProCon.org:
“It is conceivable that excessive use of cannabis sometimes contributes to acute schizophrenic episodes. But it is difficult to believe that cannabis is a strong risk factor for this disorder, because there is no evidence that the incidence of schizophrenia has risen dramatically over the past 50 years, in parallel with the huge increase in cannabis use.
Young schizophrenic patients are often heavy cigarette smokers too, but no-one would suggest that tobacco causes schizophrenia.”

Jason Schiffman, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, et al, reported in their article, “Symptoms of Schizotypy Precede Cannabis Use,” published Mar. 30, 2005 in Psychiatric Research:
“The onset of schizotypal symptoms generally precedes the onset of cannabis use. The findings do not support a causal link between cannabis use and schizotypal traits.”

Hollie V. Thomas, DPhil, Director of the MSc Program in Psychiatry at Cardiff University, wrote in an article titled “Psychiatric Symptoms in Cannabis Users,” published Aug. 1993 in the British Journal of Psychiatry:
“Cannabis use can lead to a range of short-lived symptoms such as de-personalisation, de-realisation, a feeling of loss of control, fear of dying, irrational panic and paranoid ideas…
The evidence that cannabis has a causative role in chronic psychotic or affective disorders is not convincing, although the drug may modify the course of an already established illness.”

Marijuana use doesn't cause psychosis. Psychosis causes marijuana use.

Considering 40% of the US population (12 and older) have used cannabis (Source NIDA) there should be a lot more psychotic people running around.

Don't worry. Big Brother will keep you safe from yourself.

“Most researchers agree that further study is needed in order to draw conclusions whether or not cannabis usage causes mental illness or if people who use cannabis already have a higher pre-disposition to the mental illnesses.”

I have already seen anti-cannabis zealots jump on this study as further “proof” that cannabis is dangerous. They do not care about the truth; they only care about furthering their puritanical agenda. They will use any piece of propaganda they can.

How about a little fair and balance reporting?

“It is conceivable that excessive use of cannabis sometimes contributes to acute schizophrenic episodes. But it is difficult to believe that cannabis is a strong risk factor for this disorder, because there is no evidence that the incidence of schizophrenia has risen dramatically over the past 50 years, in parallel with the huge increase in cannabis use.
Young schizophrenic patients are often heavy cigarette smokers too, but no-one would suggest that tobacco causes schizophrenia.” – Colin Blakemore, PhD, ScD

“Despite the enormous popularity of cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s in numerous Western cultures, rates of psychotic disorders haven't increased since then in any of these societies. Individuals suffering from mental illness such as schizophrenia tend to use all intoxicants – particularly alcohol and tobacco – at greater rates than the general population. Not surprisingly, many of these individuals also use cannabis.” – Paul Armentano