Cannabis Psychosis: Males Twice As Likely To Deal With Psychotic State From Drug

Researchers at the University of New York (NYU) have found that men are more likely to suffer from cannabis psychoses. The findings are published in the Journal of Advances in Dual Diagnoses.

As cannabis remains the most widely used illicit drug in the United Kingdom, there has been a lot of exploring regarding the nature of the relationship between its use and psychosis. However, it is not particularly well-understood by researchers, even now.

For this latest study, researchers in the Department of Health Sciences at York examined large datasets over a period of 11 years to investigate the differences in men and women as they examined the development of cannabis exposure to full-on cannabis psychosis development.

Based on the data, researchers found that trends in cannabis use suggested that males were twice as likely as females to use the drug. 

"The marked gender difference in rates of cannabis psychosis is puzzling It is possible that mental health and specialist drug treatment services, which have a disproportionate number of men, are identifying and treating more males with combined mental health and cannabis problems. However it is also possible that women with cannabis psychosis are not being identified and offered treatment for the problems they develop," noted Ian Hamilton of the research team, in a news release. 

"When it comes to cannabis psychosis gender does matter."

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