My 23-year-old son struggles with Cannabis-Induced Psychosis. He began smoking THC regularly at age 15. I thought cannabis was safer than alcohol so was not alarmed at first. Then, his school performance declined, and despite our pleas to stop, he became increasingly erratic and addicted. He lost interest in sports his senior year and chose to smoke marijuana with his friends instead.
He went into a depression and refused to finish his schoolwork, which caused him to argue with his dad, so he ran away for three days. I called all his friends to try and find him. They said my son shouldn’t smoke marijuana because he acted strangely and said bizarre things. This was the first I’d heard anything like this.
He was found living in a stairwell. He told me, “Nothing is real. You’re not real. I can’t feel any emotions.” His first forced one-month hospitalization followed when he was just 17 years old.
Since then, he has been hospitalized five more times. There was a harrowing three-month disappearance at age 20. The week before he disappeared, he interviewed to go into the army. He had passed the written test but had to stop using THC to pass the drug test. When he went missing, we feared he was dead. The police declared him missing and endangered.
When he returned three months later, he was unrecognizable. He was 20 pounds lighter and rambled about climbing trees and hills naked to get “closer to the voices in his head” and his encounter with an alien. We tried many, many times to get him into treatment, but he refused.
Four months later, the police came to the house during a psychotic episode to take him away by force. His ER psychiatrist warned us never to let him use cannabis again, or he would develop treatment-resistant bipolar with psychotic features. This was the first time we’d ever heard that cannabis was dangerous.
Despite quitting THC, his psychotic episodes continued, sometimes lasting months, culminating in a violent attack a year later against his father, which almost ended his father’s life. After being hospitalized and incarcerated for four months, he faced multiple court hearings and was declared incompetent to stand trial. He still faces legal issues with the potential of being jailed for many years.
During psychosis, it’s typical for people to experience a type of amnesia and not recall events. Also typical is an inability to know you are ill, which is called anosognosia. We love him so much but at times did not feel safe around him.
Cannabis induced psychosis is real. It happened to my child. Educate your child on the harms of THC at Johnny’sAmbassadors.org.
If you’re concerned about your child’s THC use, visit JohnnysAmbassadors.org/parents and join our private Parents of Children with Cannabis-Induced Psychosis (POCCIP) group at facebook.com/groups/POCCIP.