Miranda Devine, writing in the New York Post, asks, “Did reefer drive the Highland Park parade ‘killer’ Robert Crimo to madness?” She’s asking because she’s identified something of a pattern. Namely, “alienated young male stoners.” She writes:
The New York Times last month warned of the high potency of cannabis products in the newly deregulated legal market and the potentially harmful effects to young brains: “Psychosis, Addiction, Chronic Vomiting: As Weed Becomes More Potent, Teens Are Getting Sick.”
THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, 20 years ago was at about 4% potency, but today’s Big Weed products are close to 100%.
We have known for at least 15 years that cannabis use can increase the risk of psychosis in susceptible people by about 40%, according to the medical journal Lancet.
In a National Review piece published earlier this year, I reported the warning from Robin Murray, a leading psychiatrist and a professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London:
If 100 people smoke cannabis with 15 percent THC content every day, five of them will develop frank [i.e., blatant] clinical psychosis; if they smoke cannabis containing 30 percent THC every day, then 10 of them will develop psychosis. This compares with 1 percent risk in the general population. For comparison — in 100 tobacco smokers, about 10 will get lung cancer.