Schizophrenia/Marijuana

Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe brain disease. This disease affects both men and women; however, men appear to get it earlier than women. According to studies, schizophrenia affects men in their late teens or early twenties, and it affects women in their late twenties. People who have schizophrenia suffer from symptoms such as hallucinations (which are frequently hearing voices), believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting against them. As a side effect of these symptoms, patients with this disease may become fearful and reserved. This rare disease only affects 1 % of the population during their lifetime.

Doctors studying schizophrenia have linked early development of schizophrenia with the usage of illegal substances, especially marijuana. One of the worst things someone with the risk of being schizophrenic can do is smoke marijuana. According to researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia, people who smoke weed and have developed psychotic disorders, did so 3 years earlier than people who do not smoke weed. Doctors say Marijuana speeds up the onset of the disease and makes it
worse. This might happen because the brain has special receptors which respond to chemicals found in marijuana, and they increase the production of dopamine (chemical in the brain that either increases or reduces the activity of neuron), which possibly increases the psychotic episodes.

How do you think a person with schizophrenia feels?
Have you ever met a person who suffers from schizophrenia?

Sources: http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/sz.overview.htm Times, February edition.

I never realized the severness of this disease :S A good friend of my brother suffers from Schizophrenia, i remember witnessing one of his fits, it was very sad. It was like someone was attacking him, but he was only imagining it, and he would talk to himself a lot.

What a terrible thing to have!
I do have a friend that has it, I think I mentioned this before? But yeah, she had it pretty bad and the saddest part was seeing people bully her endlessly. She had to leave school and everything. Sometimes she would go into these fits where she'd start twitching or she'd say that she was being told things. Its was scary. Although she told me that it was terrible and described it somewhat I can't even come close to immagining how she felt.