Can Weed Make You Psychotic?

Look out for that ultra-high-THC marijuana. It will make you nuts… or will it?

Matthew Alice, the sharp-as-a-tack answer person at San Diego's main alternative weekly, tackles the question in a column this week.

(A reader had wanted more elaboration of a previous column that said: "more and more, psychiatrists are seeing habitual smokers of the gene-tweaked, ultra-high-THC-content weed who develop similar psychoses."):

[Regarding] the weed-psychosis connection, studies (mostly fromEurope) indicate that the weed might not cause the psychosis orschizophrenia; it's more likely that people with the genetic orbehavioral predisposition to the diagnosis can be pushed around thecorner by heavy use. Young teenagers seem to be particularly at riskbecause the frontal cortex of the brain is still being formed at thisage, and that's the area most responsible for regulation of emotions,
judgment, analysis, and planning. The jury's still out, though.

Readers: The column refers to a potential weedside effect known as "couch cramp." At risk of sounding like MotherTeresa over here, what's that mean exactly? (I have a good idea, butyou tell me.)

Potophrenia [SD Reader]