Smoking cannabis in your teens may put you at higher risk of common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety in later life, reveals a new study.

‘Teenage cannabis use increases the risk of common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety in later life.’
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Researchers from McGill University and the University of Oxford carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of the best existing evidence and analyzed 23,317 individuals (from 11 international studies) to see whether the use of cannabis in young people is associated with depression, anxiety and suicidality in early adulthood.Read More..





They found that cannabis use among adolescents is associated with a significantly increased risk of depression and suicidality in adulthood (not anxiety). While the individual-level risk was found to be modest, the widespread use of the drug by young people makes the scale of the risk much more serious.
The population attributable risk was found to be around 7 percent, which translates to more than 400,000 adolescent cases of depression potentially attributable to cannabis exposure in the US, 25,000 in Canada and about 60,000 in the UK.
Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University and a scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, states: "While the link between cannabis and mood regulation has been largely studied in preclinical studies, there was still a gap in clinical studies regarding the systematic evaluation of the link between adolescent cannabis consumption and the risk of depression and suicidal behavior in young adulthood. This study aimed to fill this gap, helping mental health professionals and parents to better address this problem".
Professor Andrea Cipriani, NIHR Research Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said: 'We looked at the effects of cannabis because its use among young people is so common, but the long-term effects are still poorly understood. We carefully selected the best studies carried out since 1993 and included only the methodologically sound ones to rule out important confounding factors, such us premorbid depression.'
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'Regular use during adolescence is associated with lower achievement at school, addiction, psychosis, and neuropsychological decline, increased the risk of motor vehicle crashes, as well as the respiratory problems that are associated with smoking.'
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While the review of observational studies was the first to look at the effects of cannabis use in adolescents only, it was not possible to predict the risk at the individual level, nor was it possible to discern information about the dose-dependent risk of cannabis use.
Source-Eurekalert