So what are you're thoughts on Marijuana causing schizophrenia?

My addiction to Marijuana:
I smoked for the first time in April when I was 16 years old. The past two years I've smoked heavy amounts of weed especially after I got my first job up until I turned 19 in October. I smoked every single day, the second school was over me and friends were hot boxing our way home, smoked myself to sleep, and when I got up for work. During break at work I usually went over to a friend/co-workers house close by where 4 or 5 people (sometimes more) would all match and usually try to burn down either an eighth or more within the 30mins we had; and just go straight back to his house once we got off and get ripped. On other days his house wasn't available I'd just drive around and smoke a blunt or two with a co-worker. Boss never cared, he was a stoner too, and we worked hard. Came home with $70 in tips if I was lucky, on top of 30-35 hour weekly paychecks. Me and two other friends who worked there put our money together twice a week to pick up 2-3 ounces at a time so it was much cheaper, and so we could afford alcohol and food on the weekends, which is when we pretty much made an effort to get high every second of the day. Usually ending up blacking out and waking up in all sorts of houses during the weekend. Was almost never home even on school nights and avoided my mom and sister when I got home so they wouldn't know I was high. Turned into a compulsive liar towards my family.

(OMIT this paragraph not really related, just background info and rambling if interested)
Surprised I went so long without my mom finding out, it wasn't until I was 18&1/2. And once she found out I was instantly able to convince her it was a "safe," drug and she was still unaware of how often I smoked. She was oblivious because I used to have a strong group of friends before I moved to GA and we made it clear that we would never get affiliated with any type of drug, and were completely against them. We actually made a leisure activity out of attempting to catch some of their older brothers smoking, and searched everywhere for their drugs. Got them in so much trouble one time his older brothers friend gave me a white wash until I passed out and they had to call an ambulance don't blame em. On top of my friends influence had a ton of D.A.R.E and extensive drug programs and such at school, and there were very very few kids who ever experimented, even throughout middle school. I found out when I moved down to GA it was the complete opposite, except back in MI I found out everyone I used to know became even more of a stoner then me once HS came along, which also had a really bad rep when it came to drug use . Anyway 3 or 4 years before I moved to GA my dad had an aneurysm and two strokes(in hospital), after spending 6 months in the hospital we found out my dad was completely paralyzed on the right side (huge section of the left part of his brain was damaged), his short-term memory was impaired, surprisingly his long-term memory is better than anyone's I've ever met, double vision, he lost his ability to rationalize, ability to balance, and speech problems. My mom was in complete denial over his illness for over 4 years, and barley had time to take care of me and my sister (spent months over friends houses), spent loads of cash on rehab centers, therapy, traveled all over the U.S. seeing top notch doctors, recovery centers, anything you could come up with. My dad was a health nut, worked out everyday, had a high paying job with GM, never smoked a cig in his life, and drank about one or two beers on the weekends, so this was completely unexpected. He actually fainted in the gym. He is still completely against drugs and refused to take any pain meds unless it was through the IV even after he was released from the hospital. We were told all his conditions would only get worse and they were right, cept throughout the 4 years he fortunately got some of his balance back and is able to walk around on a four prong cane. We spent the next two years meeting up with aneurysm recovery groups, but it was harder on my dad then therapeutic, because he was worse off then everyone else there. This isn't a sob story y'all I actually coped with my dad's illness and the whole situation very well. I was so young I barley knew what was going on, and it has nothing to do with my heavy marijuana consumption, just was giving the an explanation to why my mom was oblivious over my drug use and I got a little carried away... Yeah I'm speedin . Which reminds me of two more reasons as to why my mother never would have thought I would start smoking or do any drugs, because I hated more than anything taking my ADD medication after I was diagnosed in 2nd grade, and finally my dad's resentment for cigs had me HATE them as well and I gave my mom a hard time when she started smoking them because her depression was so bad. I didn't do anything like hide them from her or anything though, just complained a lot. I smoked my first cig last year actually and only really smoke them when I'm drunk.

Addiction continued:
-All my money went towards weed and helping my mom pay rent, the only thing I ever saved up for was a trip to PC for spring break costing $500, purchased some clothes, protein shakes, and other supplements. Eventually lost my job because I had to rely on a ride and was late, a lot; which will be an issue with my new job . I started dealing to feed my habit, and spent half of my senior year in school high. I quit dealing because it was too difficult without transportation, I wouldn't risk dealing from my own home so I hung out at a "trap house," in my neighborhood with a bunch of sketchy gang members. I live in a pretty nice area so it was nothing serious, they just called themselves a gang because they had a lot of guns, carried a 'flag', had a special handshake, and moved nothin but a pound at a time usually(took 2-3weeks). I was always nervous hanging around there, I was the only white boy , was the youngest kid there, and I didn't affiliate myself with their gang so it was a weird relationship. The house got raided shortly after I started hanging around there, luckily it was at night. Ironically a cop moved into the house. Once I burned up the last of my stash I started resorting to other things like shoplifting, and helped a friend at school sell fake True Religion and Mek jeans.

I was still the first one to argue weed wasn't addictive whenever someone brought up the debate... I finally came to my senses the summer after my senior year, did my best not to get involved in anything stupid for money, and only smoked when the opportunity came up, and some weeks I was still smoking everyday. It wasn't until I joined the Shroomery, I decided I was going to quit smoking and start to aggressively look for a job. Well I actually was supposed to be getting hired at a Dollar General which I explained in this thread how that went... Planned on using the money from my first paycheck I made there to replace my marijuana addiction with shrooms and buy PF-TEK equipment. I felt like it would be a fun little project that would take my mind off trying to get high and something to look forward to. Trying to go cold turkey was pretty tough, wasn't having withdrawals but I was going nuts without it and losing sleep over it.

I stopped taking ADD meds for a whole year prior to joining. Got a script for the first time again to help with my extensive job search because it was becoming impossible and also help finish some online schooling. Problem is insomnia and depression started kicking in, which had me slip up a couple times with mary jane. Got a little desperate for some kind of high since I got myself all excited about the idea of cultivating mushrooms, was too focused on replacing my marijuana addiction with the cubes. Once I found out I pretty much got fucked over for the employment opportunity, with no hope of getting started with a tek anytime soon, I went on that little DXM binge. Then got prescribed ambien and klonopin for legitimate reasons, and ended up starting to abuse those a little aswell. I'm stopping myself from taking the meds before I ruin my life on some benzos; so I got some melatonin to help myself sleep. Unfortunately the melatonin doesn't help too much and I get weird side effects from it.

Yeah I'll admit, I was a dumbass. I tend to make sporadic decisions that lead me down dark paths. It's taken me up until now to realize I have an addictive personality. I'm just glad I was able to accept this truth. It took jail to teach me what true consequences are and how a little mistake can effect your life forever. On the bright side I'm pretty sure I have an Assistant Management position at McDonald's, but I know better then to have high expectations when it comes to a job opportunity, been let down too many times. What I am sure of, is that I'm done fucking up. 

My Schizo concern:
I feel my heavy consumption of marijuana may have triggered schizophrenia. The thing is I quit taking vyvanse/adderall because it turns me into an insomniac, gets me really depressed, but mainly because it tends to give me anxiety and makes me socially awkward. It's not just the anxiety that makes me socially awkward and even when I'm sober, sometimes I have trouble finding the right words to say when it comes to starting or keeping a conversation with someone. My mind will end up going blank and it got worse throughout high school. I always thought this was due to the ADD meds, but after being off them for a year, I feel like I may have fell victim to marijuana's potential to induce schizophrenia. Although my personality did improve my brain still has these moments where I think of a million things at once instead of what I want to say, type, or even draw. Throughout elementary and middle school I won best piece of art for my age group, In order for me to produce a good piece of art now-a-days that would stand out it would take an abnormally long time (I know that is also part of ADD). I was drawing designs for a vaporizer contest last week and it took me hours just to do simple sketches because I couldn't transfer the images I had in my mind on the paper, the weird thing is I knew how to draw what I was imagining but the second I would go to draw it out, I just kept locking up and forgetting what stroke I was about to perform. Another weird example was today I had to make an outline for an essay about importance of being ambitious, super easy topic, but took me abnormally long, not to mention I couldn't do it in order. I had my 3 topics and whatever else the outline asked for in my head, but I couldn't type it out and had to use a thesaurus every two seconds for words that got lost in my head.

Quote:

EDIT: I am not lashing out on the drug itself, or calling Marijuana an addictive drug. I myself was addicted and if you had time to read my story, you would have to be ignorant to tell me I didn't have a problem.

More on the concern itself:
(Take in mind the few studies that show Marijuana could cause Schizophrenia were reported in those who smoked heavily at a young age, and it still didn't occur in all patients. So if the test results were accurate I'm just one of the un-lucky few.)
-I am diagnosed with ADD (the drug could have just wrosen ADD symptoms although there are patients who smoke for their ADD/ADHD but IME it only lowers my ability to focus)

-I've been taking ADD meds since 2nd grade, ritalin, concerta, vyvanse, and adderall.

-On some occasions I smoke, these Schizo like symptoms occur
  -sporatic unorganized, scattered thoughts
  -difficulty speaking increases, a lot more than friends

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underfliptown said:

tldr.

Marijuana "addiction"... Jesus christ what a fucking joke. Some people must really think it's cool to be addicts, this shits retarded.

Keep believing all that shit the anti-drug lobbyist funded scientists tell you...

Marijuana is good for you, if you can't handle it then don't do it as much. Simple.

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anything can be mentally addictive bro. Marijuana has it's Pros for sure, but it can make you lazy, unproductive too. It still can take over your life if you don't use it in moderation. 

I'll use it again for sure, just not going to abuse it like I did.

I'm still curious to find out if other users feel like there is a possibility to get schizophrenia from it. Anything that messes with your psych, I believe may have the potential.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2005559,00.html
not so sure if I can believe this but, I don't see any research proving this wrong.

Nemmies said:

I felt very dependent on weed for a good while throughout high school.  I then realized that is not the person I wanted to be.  One simple high dose mushroom trip sent me on great path free of all chemical dependencies.  What did you go to jail for?  Drink lots of water.  Eat lots of organic fruits and vegetables and get a sufficient amount of exercise and you will be feeling like a million bucks in no time.

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Nemmies said:

There is very little known as to what induces schizophrenia.  If you feel weird do not do it.  It is as simple as listening to your body, not a postulated theory.

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underfliptown said:

I don't see any research proving that I am not God. So I believe this.

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DarkElf said:

They don't know what causes Schizophrenia. No one does.

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The author suggests that marijuana use is a special hazard to schizophrenic patients and that physicians should alert such high-risk patients to the possible untoward interaction between their illness and marijuana.

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The results do not support a link between abuse of specific substances and specific clinical symptoms but do suggest a general link between substance abuse and affective disturbance among schizophrenic patients.

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The data suggest that the development or recurrence of acute psychosis in the context of cannabis use may be associated with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia.

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