Marijuana and Mental Illness? Not so fast.

Junk science exposed again.
It doesn’t matter how good the scientific research is… it is still junk science if it results in implied conclusions, particularly when they are publicized based on political opportunism rather than waiting to follow through to real proof.
The whole connection of marijuana to schizophrenia and psychosis that has been touted worldwide was clearly in that category – no proof of causality, evidence of self-medication, and lack of certainty regarding diagnosing the onset of the conditions. Yet, all sorts of “serious” people have accepted as certain that marijuana causes schizophrenia and psychosis.
Paul Armentano analyzes the situation:

Most notably perhaps, a team of researchers writing in the July 28, 2007 edition of the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet, boldly proclaimed that smoking cannabis could boost one‰s risk of a psychotic episode by 40 percent or more. […]
Of course, there was a fatal flaw with The Lancet‰s argument Ö one that, oddly enough, every single MSM outlet failed to mention. Empirical data did not support the investigators‰ hypothesis that smoking marijuana was associated with increased rates of schizophrenia or other mental illnesses among the general public Ö a fact that even the authors begrudgingly admitted when they declared, ‹Projected trends for schizophrenia incidence have not paralleled trends in cannabis use over time.Š […]
Two years after The Lancet‰s dire predictions, a team of researchers at the Keele University Medical School have once and for all put the ‘pot-and-mental illness‰ claims to the test. […]

‹[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. á This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.Š [Abstract]

Oops.
Just add it to the long list of scary marijuana stories… it’ll turn you into a bat/ax murderer/assassin, it’ll make black men look at a white woman twice, it’ll kill your brain cells, grow man-boobs, make you unmotivated, destroy your memory, cause cancer, make you get pregnant or shoot your best friend, fund terrorists, destroy your sperm, and a whole lot of other things.