Pot smokers and advocates of legalization have long complained that the 70-year-old movie Reefer Madness, which depicted violent psychotic behaviour associated with the use of cannabis (marijuana, dada, grass, ganja, hashish), had no basis in truth and was simply a propaganda film made by the government to terrorize the public. In the past twenty years many studies on marijuana use indicate that Reefer Madness, is far closer to the truth than pro-legalization groups such as NORML and the Drug Policy Alliance (a union between the Lindesmith Center and the Drug Policy Foundation) would have us believe. A study out of Hamburg, Germany published last year in the journal Psychopathology found that “Cannabis use can cause psychotic-like phenomena e.g., aberrant perceptual experience) that are very similar to symptoms measured by many items of schizotypy scales: thus, increased schizotypy scores of current cannabis users may be due to cannabis effects rather than to schizotypy.” As the potency of cannabis increases so do episodes of psychiatric and medical emergencies associated with cannabis use. A 1999 Bulletin out of the University of Maryland’s Substance Abuse Research Center, June 2001, reported that marijuana-related emergency room visits are now as common as those associated with heroin. Charles Perkins, President of Drug Watch International, states that the government and the medical community need to be more diligent about providing the media with this information so that parents are more aware of the dangers associated with marijuana use.

Missdiagnosis leads to misstreatment, marijuana psychosis often mimics schizophrenia. “Marijuana psychoses are easily confused with other psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia, and this leads to unnecessary long term pharmacotherapy.” Joel Jeffries, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, March 1999. In a sample of a thousand New Zealanders aged 18-35 years the most common physical or mental health problems, experienced by 22% of users were acute anxiety or panic attacks following cannabis use. Fifteen percent reported psychotic symptoms following use.