Free Republic

The New York Times recently came clean, saying it was wrong about the effects of legalizing marijuana. The paper had once argued that weed was mostly harmless and not truly addictive, but now admits those old claims don’t hold up today. Back in 2014, an editorial writer claimed marijuana wasn’t addictive like heroin, while also noting that users might still crave it and struggle to quit. The NY Times even admitted that heavy users needed more of the drug over time and some got withdrawal symptoms. This week, the Times’ editorial board finally said, “It is now clear that many...

A study by researchers at the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil, reported in an article in the journal Psychological Medicine, finds for the first time that individuals exposed to a combination of these two factors - the presence of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the blood and cannabis use (either daily or during adolescence) - are more likely to suffer from psychosis than those who are exposed to neither or to only one. According to the authors, the study provides "the first clinical evidence that immune dysregulation modifies the cannabis-psychosis association".

"Duane Stone is a veteran Seattle mental health specialist. He's seeing a surprising increase in patients experiencing psychotic episodes as well. Many have never had any mental health problems before. "I get lots of first break kind where this person doesn't have an experience with mental illness, they don't have a diagnosis, they're 30 or 40-years-old. And the only thing they've been doing has been smoking marijuana for the last year or two," Stone said. It's not just your stereotypical stoner. They're family people working at places such as Microsoft and Amazon."