Smoking Marijuana Causes…Schizophrenia?

When you hear marijuana what do you think of? For me, I don’t think much of it other than a waste of money to cause you to feel a little loopy and give you the munchies. Marijuana has many uses however medicinally as it can help manage pain and appetite. Recent studies however, have shown a link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. How can that be? To understand this, we must know a few things about both marijuana and schizophrenia.
What is marijuana?
Cannabis sativa, commonly known as marijuana, is one of the most frequently abused illegal drugs in western culture. The active ingredients in cannabis are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol. THC is the compound responsible for the addictive and psychoactive properties of cannabis while cannabidiol is often the compound which is attributed to the medicinal effects. Cannabis is illegal for recreational use in the US but is permitted medicinally in 17 states (including Alaska, California, Michigan, and Montana) plus DC. Cannabis works on the endocannabinoid system in the brain which regulates neurotransmission in brain regions associated with the regulation of pain, emotion, motivation and cognition.
What is schizophrenia?
The term schizophrenia means ‘split mind’. It is a psychotic disorder which is characterized by disturbances in perception, behavior, and communication. There are three types of schizophrenia: paranoid, disorganized and catatonic. A person is classified in a certain category depending on the specific set of symptoms they exhibit. General symptoms include (but are not limited to) hallucinations, delusions, lack of attention, memory impairment, impaired information processing, loss of interest and loss of ability to experience pleasure. Schizophrenia often presents itself in young adulthood but a good percentage of people with the disease report psychotic symptoms starting as early as age 11. Researchers are not sure of the exact causes of schizophrenia but there are many hypotheses about possible contributing causes. The most common hypothesized cause is that there is an imbalance of brain chemicals or other sort of brain abnormality.
So how can marijuana use be linked to schizophrenia?
Well the truth is, A LOT of things have been linked to schizophrenia. Although, as stated earlier, marijuana works to change brain chemistry which is also thought to be a cause of schizophrenia; it is not as if we can say that smoking marijuana CAUSES schizophrenia rather researchers say at this point that cannabis use presents an ‘increased risk’ for developing the disease. However, the list of things which are found in the population of people with schizophrenia as possible ‘risk factors’ is quite extensive and, if you ask me, some of them are just absurd.
Here is a list of some known ‘risk factors’ for the development of schizophrenia:

• Occurs twice as often in unmarried/divorced people as in married or widowed populations
• Left handed people have significantly higher instances
• A significant number of schizophrenics have OCD 
• People with schizophrenia often have excessive shyness or minor physical/motor-control problems in childhood
• Some studies show that a person whose father was older when they were born have greater chance of schizophrenia
• A family history of epilepsy increases chance for schizophrenia
• 10% risk if one immediate family member has disease
• 40% if both parents or identical twin have disease
• Winter/ spring births pose a 5-8% higher possibly of developing schizophrenia because of prevalence of colds/viruses in infancy
• People from large families with multiple children in short intervals because of exposure to infection early in infancy
• Child born if pregnant mother had exposure to viruses such as rubella, measles, or chickenpox while infant is in the womb have been associate with higher risk

As you can see, not only can use of marijuana be linked to schizophrenia but so can a range of things from infections in early infancy to being left handed.
So, no, smoking marijuana cannot lead to development of schizophrenia. It may however, put you at a higher risk in conjunction with other risk factors for developing the disease.