When someone has a psychosis, a diagnosis of a particular psychotic illness is usually given. Diagnosis means identification of an illness by symptoms, so the diagnosis will depend on what brought on the illness and how long the symptoms last. When someone is experiencing psychosis for the first time, it can be difficult to make an exact diagnosis, because many of the factors underlying the illness may remain unclear. Nevertheless, it is helpful to understand some of the diagnostic labels you might hear.
· Drug-Induced Psychosis
Using or withdrawing from drugs and alcohol can cause psychotic symptoms. Sometimes these symptoms will rapidly disappear as the substance wears off. In other cases, the illness may last longer, but begin with a drug-induced psychosis.
"
The problem is, that it is really too easy for psychiatrists to to be deluded by long-held superstitions and beliefs when they don't have all the information. Example from a real-life case:
18 year old kills his best friend while in a psychotic state.
Father says that he was having trouble because his son was smoking pot and becoming increasinly irrational.
Trial is held and pot-smoking killer is committed as not guilty because of insanity and goes to Alberta Hospital.
Years later, dad admits that son was behaving strangely as young as 10. At the same time, son is saying that when he was very young he had been sexually abused by his own father.
Questions: Was the alleged sexual abuse delusional?
Did the Marijuana cause the psychosis?
If Marijuana causes psychosis why aren't we all psychotic?
If he was already schizophrenic, could he have been using Marijuana as self-medication to calm the anxiety and his feeling that he was going crazy?
We know that MJ may be associated with psychosis in some people, but that does not mean that it causes it.
Too often, I suspect, the appelation "drug-induced psychosis" is too easy a conclusion, especially when people, particularly parents, are experiencing a moral panic when they see their kids smoking pot.
Think of Roszko. Turned into the police at the age of 16 by a very stupid father because he was smoking the evil weed!
We now know that Roszko had many demons. We may never know their origins, but he was psychotic. If that was a drug-induced psychosis, though, I ask the question, why is this drug-induced psychosis not much more widespread?
"In other cases, the illness may last longer, but begin with a drug-induced psychosis."
I think this answer is way too easy an explanation.
