Does Cannabis Use Cause Schizophrenia?
Over the past few years, the Australian media have promoted a new version of “Reefer Madness”. According to this myth, cannabis use causes schizophrenia. The “proof” for this is to exhibit a few schizophrenics who use cannabis. The fact that there are millions of Australians who use cannabis and who are not schizophrenics is ignored. Because schizophrenics tend to have extremely high rates of illicit drug use, it is relatively easy to find schizophrenics who use cannabis. Table 1 (below) shows the relative amount of psychoactive drug use among Australian schizophrenics versus the Australian population in general.
