Marijuana relapse after psychotic episode
-By Timothy Lyons
I felt that in the climate of California’s change to the laws for marijuana from a medicinal substance to one that is now open for use, I would delve into the world of pharmacology from another stance. That of marijuana relapse after psychotic episode on marijuana. Oh yes, there is the possibility that at some point in time a person who uses marijuana in any of its forms may end up having a psychotic break from reality.
In an article from October 2016, Effects of continuation, frequency, and type of cannabis use on relapse in the first 2 years after onset of psychosis an observational study, the writers and contributors Tabea Schoeler, MSc, Natalia Petros, MSc, Marta Di Forti, PhD, Ewa Klamerus, BSc, Enrico Foglia, BSc, Olesya Ajnakina, MSc, Charlotte Gayer-Anderson, PhD, Marco Colizzi, MD, Diego Quattrone, MD, Irena Behlke, MSc, Sachin Shetty, MD, Philip McGuire, FMedSci, Anthony S David, FRCPsych, Robin Murray, FRS, Dr Sagnik Bhattacharyya, PhD looked at marijuana relapse after psychotic episode and its links to compromising medication effects.
Purpose
The purpose for this is to objectively understand arguments for and against the use of pharmacology especially in regards to marijuana relapse after psychotic episode. A good metaphor for me is that this way of learning is not too far off from the idea of treatment that is used in Diane Linehan’s dialectical behavior therapy as described by Kelly Koerner (Koerner, 2012). One of the treatments is with thought dialectics to have clients see polar opposites in thinking to gain objectivity and to validate things that are valid while disposing of those that are not. In this way one gains an understanding that there are more sides to the story of pharmacology and its use in treatment. There have been great strides in therapeutic techniques such as when dealing with prevention of marijuana relapse after psychotic episode
One important aspect of this article is that the study is looking directly at the negative side effects of marijuana use and the harm that it can cause. Yes, Marijuana relapse after psychotic episode is not something that is a healthy behavior. This is a different approach than many drug trials or studies in that they look at the effects of the drugs and the side effects seem to be looked upon as outlier statistics that do happen. I became aware of the deficient nature of this way of looking at pharmacology. Rather than how it can be useful, maybe see the negative side effects and look at those and how they affect certain populations. This does not serve the drug manufacturers purpose.
Although the study used 256 patients over a period of twelve years which appears to be a good sample size, the drawback would have to be that many of the patients were forced into the hospital involuntarily. This may point to the fact that patients were already in an advanced stages disorders with psychosis and may have been more prone to marijuana relapse after psychotic episode. Data used also contained information based on hospital records of participant fallouts that would no longer cooperate for 2 year follow-ups.
I do believe that this is a good study. The findings seem to point to a greater rate of marijuana relapse after psychotic episode in patients even those who also follow a treatment protocol. It is suggested that there may be a reduction in the effectiveness in antipsychotic medications because of marijuana use. This would need to be looked at more closely. It also points out other studies which have been done that look at this very thing. The Data may indeed point to a problem. This just highlights drugs of abuse and their role in relapse rates for mental illness.
References
Koerner, K. (2012). Doing Dialectic Behavior Therapy (1 ed.). New York, NY: Guilford press.
Schoeler, T., Petros, N., Di Forti, M., Klamerus, E., Foglia, E., Ajnakina, O.,…Bhattacharyya,, S. (2016). Effects of continuation, frequency, and type of marijuana use on relapse in the first 2 years after onset of psychosis: an observational study. The Lancet, 3(10), 947-953. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30188-2