There are so many sides to this controversy. Marijuana’s good for what ails you – right? For cancer pain, anxiety, depression…for putting your body back in order… Or is it??
There has long been a belief that cannabis, another name for marijuana, was associated with suicidality. Not a popular belief, but one supported by neuroscience. What do I mean by suicidality? I mean thinking about suicide, planning it, setting it up…and following through. Trying to kill yourself. Or actually killing yourself. Can cannabis make you suicidal? Is cannabis responsible?
So is it?
Is cannabis use directly linked to the process of planning and completing suicide?
Meet Isaac:
Isaac walked along the boardwalk, feeling alone. Isolated. Bored. And the more bored he felt the more depressed he felt. He had few friends, and the ones he had he was never able to see. He didn’t have a car to go visit them, and most of them were also without transportation.
His insides seemed hollow. He felt empty. His mom had died from cancer last summer, and there was nothing left but for him to kill time until his dad got home. But that wasn’t much better. Dad was also hollow and empty, looking for ways to fill the void his mom’s death had left.
Soon after his mom’s funeral, some friends offered him pot for the pain and heartache. It helped. For a little while. So he got more to keep the heartache from defeating him completely. And it felt good.
If only the effects lasted longer. He NEEDED it to last longer.
Within a few months, Isaac was smoking with at least one friend at a time just about every day. He had graduated from high school, but his mom’s illness — then her death, the funeral, and all the grief… he just didn’t have the gumption to drag himself off to a few places to submit applications. Whether for college or even just a part-time job. So he’d sleep late, then get up and meet his friends and share some weed. By the time they were finished, his dad was home from work and in bed…so he’d find some food, then go to bed too. End of another identical day.
How do you inject meaning into a day..? Can cannabis do it? No..? What can..?
And if there’s no meaning to be found, can cannabis make you suicidal? Keep reading…
Time passed. It was meaningless. But he was coping… sort of.
Still, the days ran together like the colors in an amateur watercolor painting…until the blues, greens, pinks, reds, and oranges of life all puddled together to make a blackness. And the same ol’ same ol’ was no longer tolerable but rather unbearable.
Isaac missed his mom. She’d been his best friend. She encouraged him to be more and do more. To have hope for his future. Without her here, life was a vacuum. A void. And smoking weed no longer comforted him…. Instead it seemed to drag him further and further down. He didn’t know when it happened, but at some point he had begun to realize he didn’t want to live anymore. Not feeling like this anyway.
And where was a solution? His mom was gone. She’d always been the solution until she got sick. His poor little brother never knew her like that. He wished he could fill in the gaps for his brother, but he couldn’t even keep his own head above water.
Can cannabis make you suicidal? Can it??
The bridge over the river that ran through downtown always captured his attention. He could just jump. If he wanted to. He pictured the drop from the bridge … it would be like flying….he pictured the water swooshing and swirling around him as he plunged into it…covering his head…sinking as the sun seemed to pull away…he knew the water would be cold…
Isaac shook his head to break away from the whole idea.
Drowning would be a nasty experience… or would it? What if he just inhaled the water…?
Later that day, he saw his friend Josh on a street corner, ready to cross.
“Hey Josh…” They crossed the street together…two young men, bored, empty, hopeless. Depressed.
“What’s up, Isaac?”
“A whole lotta nothin’…”
“I have some medical weed…”
“Where’d you get it..?”
“I got a medical card for it. It helps with the pain in my leg from the cancer…”
“Is it better than pain pills? Why use weed?”
Josh took a breath, surprised Isaac would ask about something so obvious. “It’s natural, man. It’s organic. Not some chemical that’s created in a laboratory. It’s good for you.”
“Well, I’m down for it. And I don’t even have any leg pain!” So they headed over to Josh’s car where they could just sit and smoke.
Where do you go when the meaning runs out?
What do you do if cannabis makes you suicidal?
Three days later Josh heard sirens. Didn’t think much of it until he heard on the news that Isaac’s body had been found near the downtown bridge… Josh was sick. Devastated.
He had had no idea Isaac was on the verge of suicide. The loss. The waste. Maybe he could have done something for Isaac if he’d known. He knew Isaac’s family and knew they must be heartbroken. It was too tragic, and he’d had no idea. The medical marijuana should have helped soothe him. Baffling. Sickening…
Let’s take a look at this. As cannabis becomes more widely used — because of legalization for medical and recreational use in more and more states — let’s look at just how good it is for our loved ones …and even ourselves for that matter.
We’re talking about the use of cannabis, and Cannabis Use Disorder, known as CUD.
A group of medical researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health set out to learn more about the impact of cannabis use on young adults.
They chose 281,650 subjects between the ages of 18 and 34 years of age, who had participated in face-to-face National Surveys on Drug Use and Health between 2008 through 2019. These 281,650 people used cannabis daily or almost daily, at least 300 days per year, OR they had a diagnosis of cannabis use disorder plus a major depressive episode.
The primary focus was to figure out the prevalence of suicidal thinking, planning, and attempts within the last year and whether it was related to cannabis use. More than 281 thousand people. Out of all those people, what did they learn?
They learned that cannabis use and cannabis use disorder (CUD) were more strongly associated with suicidal thoughts, planning, and attempted suicide and that the risk of suicidality was higher in women than in men. And that was with or without depression.
Did you know that among people between ages 15 and 54, 60% of first suicide attempts occurred within a year of the first thoughts about it? And get this alarming fact: Suicide attempt is the single most serious clinical predictor of death by suicide.
Did you know that? When someone makes an attempt, it’s a mistake to claim they’re seeking attention. Never make that deadly mistake. Always take suicide attempts seriously, and offer help and treatment.
They also found that women with both CUD and depression were more likely to plan and attempt suicide than men with the same circumstances.
But more importantly, even though women were more likely to think about, plan, and attempt or complete suicide than men if they did use cannabis frequently and had a depressive disorder… they were only equally as likely as men to think about and attempt suicide… if no cannabis was used.
That’s the shock of it.
That the more you smoke weed, the more likely you are to think about, plan, and attempt suicide.
(Data. Fact. Not just me sayin’…..)
You wonder…was it the increasing amounts of cannabis causing the suicidality, or was it the conditions and circumstances that led to the smoking…?
We know that a large group of people seeks comfort in cannabis — now more than ever — since cannabis has been legalized in so many states. And the pandemic has increased anxiety in people everywhere.
But what’s the fallout of that …?
If you are between 18 and 34 and you use cannabis, you have a greater chance of developing thoughts of suicide, or worse, death by suicide. Regardless of whether or not you have depression. And the chances of becoming suicidal are higher if you’re a woman than if you’re a man. The association is strong and the likelihood seems to be steadily increasing, according to this 11-year study.
Those are the facts. Those are the risks. And although we need more studies and more information to determine exactly what is causing what, right now today this is information that you should share with everyone you know and love who uses cannabis.
At Innovative Psychiatry, we hear our patients’ stories of anxiety every day. Depression. Hopelessness. It seems like it’s everywhere. Let us help you with it.
People have been smoking cannabis, eating it in brownies, including it in their favorite cake recipes for decades, maybe even centuries. But no matter how you introduce it into your body, if you do it often and a lot, suicide is a risk you may not be able to control or talk yourself out of. It’s a serious and severe risk, from what many consider a seemingly harmless plant.
Can cannabis make you suicidal? Well, cannabis really may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you use it enough to cross the proverbial line into suicidal thinking.
To more effectively treat depression that medications have not helped, anxiety and trauma, and substance use disorders, IV ketamine treatment may be the best option available. It’s not for everyone, and for reasons that remain elusive, it just doesn’t impact some people in the same remarkable way it does most.
But those exceptions are in the dwindling minority. More likely than not, it will be the best introduction to peace you’ve ever imagined. From PTSD to social anxiety, and from major depressive disorder to bipolar depression to postpartum depression and even anorexia.
When you come for treatment, you’ll find a relaxed and beautiful environment, optimized by technology that removes viruses and bacteria from the air and the surfaces. Developed by NASA and the Department of Defense, this plasma cell technology was developed for the space station, and is truly other worldly in its effect. When you come for treatment, you’ll be comfortable and safe. Secure and in privacy. So you can focus on making the most of this IV ketamine treatment.
If you have suffered PTSD, depression, social anxiety or other conditions we’ve talked about here, call us.
We’re eager to meet you and work with you to help you rise above the symptoms that have held you back. It’s time to move ahead in your life.
To the restoration of your best self,
