My son has schizophrenia after 5 years of dabbing and using high potency THC. He says he started smoking to help with stress at his Ivy League college. He says THC helped him sleep and relax and didn’t understand our worrying about something that was legal. Soon he couldn’t get through the day or night without it, visibly sweating and turning nauseous when the marijuana ran out. THC addiction is no joke. He grew isolated, no longer seeing friends, missing classes, and failing out of college. He came home and spent months not leaving his childhood bedroom where he scribbled relentless and shredded paper in an attempt to create art. His cheerful personality dissipated to a sullen one. His love of family turned into paranoid ideas that we were out to control him. His speech became hard to comprehend. When the weed ran out, he became a demon, with verbally and physical assaults, stealing, lying and manipulating to get his fix. We know it was the weed because he had bouts of sobriety where he vastly improved. But the addiction was strong and he continues to go back. Cannabis induced psychosis is not well understood by the medical community and our son suffered for a long time before his psychiatrist eventually accepted that his illness was substance related. He is now on antipsychotic and anti anxiety medications and will likely never be the same. He has been unable to work and cannot live independently. I hope to help educate on the dangers related to legalization of high potency THC. People making the decisions to legalize this poison have no idea how today’s weed is destroying the lives of so many.
Saving Our Youth from the Harms of THC