My brother also used it for two years before he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but the doctors involved believed the cannabis to be a form of self medication rather than the cause of such a profound mental illness.

Out of the people I know who have developed psychotic illnesses, including my brother, they have all smoked pot, but they have all taken pills, lsd and god knows what else. They also all come from difficult and sometimes traumatic backgrounds. And certainly within my family there seems to be a clear genetic predisposition.

I think that the idea that cannabis can cause psychosis that lasts beyond the use of it is not only ridiculous but irresponsible. Too many parents ignore psychotic symptoms in their children because they think they’re on drugs. And it’s not just parents, I’ve seen a 17 year old manic depressive turned away from a mental ward because they believed his psychosis to be purely caused by cannabis. This was not the case and it took him a further year to get a proper diagnosis and be treated.

Lastly, I have never in my life met a violent stoner. I know there was a case in the news recently, but he seemed to be quite clearly psychotic, whether it was drug induced or not, this is hardly the norm, for psychosis or cannabis use.

Cannabis, when broken down chemically, the chemical that causes a “high” feeling is called cannabinoids. Furthermore, cannabinoids have been found to naturally occur within the brain as a newer class of classified endorphins.

Cause laziness and procrastination in unregular concentrations, yes, but kill the brain, no. There is no unpreventable mental disease or condition it would cause.