Schizophrenia and weed

I had a psychosis episode and I am now on antipsychotic drugs.
What will happen if I smoke weed while takeing antipsychotic drugs for a type of Schizophrenia that I have?

[Pyrate]

The weed is a mild hallucinogen so the main thing it will do is intensify your psychosis a little.  I used to smoke weed to deal with my schizoaffective/bipolar symptoms and it helped for a while.  If you're taking the antipsychotics then you should cut WAY down on the weed.  Your body has to fight through everything you put in it to keep you healthy and if it's trying to use the AP's to fix your mental issues, it'll be fighting through the THC to get to your brain.  I'm an advocate of medical MJ but it can cause a lot of problems in conjunction with other drugs.  AP's do enough damage to your body and brain without having extra drugs helping them.   Shane

[DevinPierce]

I had a similiar problem to this, but i ended up stoppin taking the medication and contiuning to smoke the weed. Sorry if this doesn't help

[DLA]

No, this wouldn't help someone.  That was not a good thing for YOU to do, much less recommend to someone else.

Why did you stop taking your meds and stick with the weed?

[xanweaner]

Why don't you ask your psychiatrist for his opinion? If you're trying to get your brain settled down, the best thing for you to do is take your prescribed meds.....and not combine it with weed. Especially, if you are not using medical marj. It's not a good thing - so many things are now added to the marj., that you just won't know what you're getting and injesting.
Respect your brain and body and stop now.
If your meds aren't doing their job, get your Dr. involved. And, get some talk therapy as well.
Good luck in your search for inner calm...

[ILADVOCATE]

The post above confuses psychiatric medication with illegal drugs. Its misinformation. Marijuana can severely worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia. I've seen it happen in people. Go to a recovery group for people who are dually diagnosed (MICA). You need two forms of recovery, psychiatric medication and help recovering from substance abuse.

[Marebears]

STOP THE WEED. MY PSY. TOLD ME THAT THE WEED HAS MANY DIFFERENT CHEMICALS ADDED TO IT .{WHILE GROWING AND AFTER PICKED} THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE MED.'S THE DR. IS GIVING IS TREATING THE FALSE PART OF THE PROBLEM IN YOUR CHEMICAL BALANCE..THE MARYJANE IS GIVING U A FALSE PERSPECTIVE WHEN IT COMES 2 TREATING THE PROBLEM. HOW DO U KNOW THE MEDS R WORKING CORRECTLY IF THEY NEED 2 GO THRU THE DEPRESSED FEELINGS FROM MJ 1ST. STOP THE MJ 4 A WHILE!!! SEE WHAT PROBLEMS R STILL THERE, THEN BE EVALUATED 4 THE CORRECT MEDS 4 THE REAL PROBLEMS OR EVEN IF THERE IS A PROBLEM.U DO KNOW THAT MJ CAUSES DEPRESSIVE AND PARANOID LIKE SYMPTOMS AND ... WHAT EVER THE PROBLEM MAY B U NEED TO STOP. YOU CANT TREAT A PROBLEM LIKE THAT WITH SOMETHING THAT CAUSES DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS ANYWAY!!!!! MJ DOES NOT MIX WELL WITH MJ ANYWAY. IT MADE ME WORSE. I WAS 1ST DIAGNO. AS SKITZ & NOW THAT I STOPPED I AM DIAGNO. BIPOLAR. HOPE THIS HELPS! ~MAREBEAR

[mozek]

  Yes, even psychiatrists have this oponion. Nevertheless it is based on observation of people using weed with high THC:CBD ratio. THC could be pretty stimulating, CBD on the other hand is sedating and is pretty promising in treating schizophrenia. For example I've been smoking weed for 8 years daily (i started growing when i was 13year old :) - no kidding. on my 15 birthday I started smoking from 2 to 10 joints a day - 0,4 - 2grams of indoor weed a day, and no other drug, well sometimes beer but not daily) now I am 23 year old.
  First CT (computed tomography of brain) ive had when i was 12year , then I had brain scan when I was 21 (MRI) - There were no negative changes at all! Results of psychological test when I was 20y were that I am normal, have more than average IQ, and that I am emotionally unballanced (which could be explained by cannabinoid activity in amygdala, but i doubt it is whole about this in my case- I come from broken family and so on...)
.Unfortunately most neuroleptics are proven to be neurotoxic and makes brain shrinks, lowers levels of sex hormones and elevating prolactin level witch is not good!
  One psychiatrist had suspicion that I am schizophrenic too but conclusion was only emotionaly unstable. I was forced to be in closed part of psychiatric clinic in Czech Republic for 10 days. And I have to say that the doctor told me that neuroleptics are NEUROPROTECTIVE and weed not, when I replied why I have no loss of brain tissue and schizophrenics taking antipsychotics have, and health monkeys being given them as part pharmacological experiments have 10 percent smaller brain volume after 2 years of taking them in dosages equivalent to usually given doses to humans (when weight is considered). she just stared.

Point is that if you smoke Cannabis Indica strains with ratio of
THC:CBD <= 10 (roughly) then it will be pretty much sedating and it will even lessen symptoms of some schizophrenics !!! thats proven.
without sexual disfunction , without damaging brain (i havent red a single study conclusively disproving a single neuroleptic medication type witch would be safe to brain cells!!! and lots of which proven that they do :( )

Be aware from whom you get your weed !!! to be sure you are no smoking fungicides and ***** like that (maybe even mercury, cadmium, polonium and arsen from cheap fertilizers)

[mozek]

I have to mention that for example risperidone (this one i was given against my will) had even greater negative impact on motivation and memory than weed in my case (well when i have smoked 7 joints in 4 hours and some beern one friday it was worse ... 7 JOINTS cca 1,5 gram !!! )
I think neuroleptics like haloperidone, risperidone, olanzapine etc are more comparable to methamphetamine than to weed in context of permanent dangers!
(they both producing oxidative stress around dopaminegec neurons by increasing metabolism of dopamine to noradrenaline (this chain of reactions have TOXIC metabolites - I red that main cause is MAO-B enzyme action. Meth by blocking pumps that have to handle moving of dopamine to be used again in another AP before it could be metabolized .... neuroleptics have it different maybe presynaptic receptor blockation which increases amount of dopamine released resulting in similar result - i dont know this for sure,  i red study which concluded that after taking neuroleptics dopamine metabilsm increases)

Psychiatrist told that methamphetamine is bad and neuroleptics are good, it s sad :(

[ILADVOCATE]

   Yes I am aware of the side effects of neuraleptics both short term and long term and they don't create the severe and dangerous effects meth does. They can for some people cause temporary cognitive confusion which can be difficult but each person responds differently to each medication. Marijuana can temporarily worsen the symptoms of bipolar, schizoaffective and schizophrenia (among other psychiatric disabilities) and make it harder to treat so they are best avoided.
   It also should be noted there is a new generation of antipsychotics in clinical study the nmda receptor modulates (google "A New Class of Antipsychotic Drugs, Psychiatric Times")
that actually were developed by original research with glycine being of help to people who
had pcp induced psychosis and then were shown to be of efficacy for schizophrenia. They have a more favorable side effect profile both short term and long term. Two of those antipsychotics are in the later stages of clinical study and if the research shows the promising results it does now may be FDA approved by 2015.

[lindahand]

If it isn't medical MJ or you don't have seeds to grow your own. I wouldn't do it. It is mixed with such crap you don't know what you are really smoking. And if you are just coming off a psychosis you don't want to risk your stability.

Not to mention the social ill MJ causes society because of the gang violence. If you buy weed you are supporting a very dangerous, illegal, aspect of society. One that maims and kills without regard for innocents who they hurt in the process. If this is the type of people they are - how can you have any trust that their product is what they say it is. They want to get you hooked and will mix it with whatever they think will get you there. Even if the MJ helps - which there is little research to prove - do you really want to be involved in illegal activities. Do you want to be the type of guy who cares so little for society that he funds a force of evil in the world.