Is high potency marijuana bad for individuals with preexisting mental health conditions?
The answer, according to university researchers, is yes.
But it depends on which mental health condition.
Researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus pointed to two studies showing that very potent marijuana is associated with psychosis. But it also offers some benefits, such as reducing anxiety and depression.
Colorado’s General Assembly had tasked the school to conduct a review of the scientific literature into the physical and mental health effects of high-potency THC or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the main psychoactive compound in marijuana.
The marijuana market has been shifting toward high-concentration products.
Critics, who view the trend as alarming, often say today’s marijuana is “not your parent’s pot.”
“The potency of THC, the high-inducing ingredient in the marijuana plant, is the strongest it has ever been,” the group One Chance to Grow Up says on its website, adding the developing brain is particularly vulnerable to the effects of THC, increasing the risk of addiction. “This is not the marijuana of the past. In fact, the potency has tripled since the 1990s. Dutch health experts concluded that THC potency above 15% classifies it as a hard drug.”
Dr. Elizabeth Stuyt, an addiction psychiatrist, said adolescents, in particular, face the risk of addiction to drugs or alcohol because they’re in a…
