The global attitude towards cannabis has shifted, with a greater emphasis on studying its possible therapeutic benefits and legalising it. Eight nations, including Canada, Uruguay, Mexico, Thailand, and 22 states in the United States, have legalised recreational marijuana, with an additional 50 countries legalising it for therapeutic purposes. Many other countries are presently attempting to change their laws in this approach.
However, just like with cigarettes and alcohol, legalisation does not imply that the substance is not hazardous.
Marijuana is also one of the most often used narcotics among youngsters worldwide. According to Columbia University researchers in New York, more than 2.5 million kids in the United States consume cannabis casually, and cannabis use among youth has grown over the previous decades.
That is why the trend towards legalisation and medical usage has sparked concern, particularly regarding the possible health dangers among teens.
A growing brain
Although it might be difficult to determine when adolescence ends, it is apparent that it is a time of significant bodily changes, including changes in the brain.
These modifications make it much more difficult to understand how cannabis affects the minds of youngsters.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the brain develops up to the mid-20s during adolescence. During this period, the brain undergoes significant growth and fine-tuning in areas like emotion regulation, stress management, rewards and motivation, decision-making, thinking before acting, impulse control, and reasoning, to mention a few.
During adolescence, there is also a rise in white matter and a reduction in grey matter, which allows various brain areas to interact faster and more efficiently.
Teenagers face a torturous existence. Not only do their bodies change dramatically, but adolescents also frequently battle with concerns such as identity, societal pressure, achieving excellent grades, family relationships, and others.
According to the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, all of these changes and pressures can make youth more prone to experience mental health concerns such as anxiety and sadness, and they can lead to the use of narcotics such as marijuana to cope. The issue is that marijuana use might exacerbate those mental health disorders in the long run.
Because the brain is still growing at this point, it is more sensitive to the effects of chemicals such as alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and other narcotics. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, these medications have been demonstrated to alter or postpone some of the developmental processes that occur during adolescence.
In the case of cannabis, there is mounting evidence that marijuana alters the brains of adolescents.
The research on cannabis and depression
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), marijuana use has been related to trouble thinking and solving issues, memory and learning, decreased coordination, and difficulty focusing. It’s unclear if these issues remain after ceasing cannabis use.
Cannabis usage has also been linked to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, according to research. Cannabis users are also more prone to experience psychotic episodes.
Research published earlier this month in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at youths who had used cannabis on occasion in the previous 12 months. The research looked at over 70,000 teen responses to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
According to the study, people who used marijuana but did not fit the criteria for addiction reported 2 to 4 times greater mental health issues such as depression, suicidal thoughts, slower thinking, and difficulties focusing when compared to non-users.
This might imply a link between marijuana usage and mental health difficulties, but it’s still unclear whether one causes the other.
Another recent study published in JAMA Psychiatry discovered that marijuana usage in adolescence was linked to an increased risk of developing depression and suicidal ideation later in life.
A 2022 research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that minors who smoked cannabis were no more likely than adults to acquire mental health disorders including despair or anxiety. Only youth who were addicted to cannabis had poorer mental health.
Is cannabis to blame?
Correlation does not imply causation, and it’s difficult to say whether cannabis use in adolescents is the cause of the higher association with depression and other mental health issues, or whether teens with these issues are more likely to use cannabis.
A 2020 study published in Frontiers of Psychology reviewed the evidence on cannabis and the teenage brain and concluded that we don’t know much about the nature of the relationship between cannabis use and mental health because many of the available studies, so-called cross-sectional studies, were designed poorly.
Cross-sectional research examines several groups of people at a single period in time. The goal is to collect information about a certain issue from a varied number of people all at once. The data is then analysed by academics, who attempt to uncover patterns or links but are unable to determine what causes what.
The Frontiers of Psychology research also emphasised that both cannabis usage and mental health issues might be caused by something else, such as the previously noted teen vulnerability to stress and anxiety.
More study is needed to determine if cannabis causes mental health problems in youth.
