Chunk #5 — Do cannabinoids cause short-lived positive psychotic symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits in the general population? — Anecdotal evidence, case reports, and surveys
As reviewed elsewhere [43], there are a number of anecdotal reports that cannabis can produce a range of acute psychotic symptoms that include depersonalization, derealization, paranoia, ideas of reference, flight of ideas, pressured thought, disorganized thinking, persecutory delusions, grandiose delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, and impairments in attention and memory in an otherwise clear consciousness [27, 35, 78, 116, 201, 205, 214, 217]. These symptoms are sometimes accompanied by anxiety, panic reactions, and psychomotor agitation. Related to the above, while there has been some discussion in the literature proposing “cannabis psychosis” as a distinct diagnostic entity, there does not appear to be enough evidence to support this notion [102, 117, 145, 149, 189]. In fact, cannabis-induced psychosis could be an early sign of schizophrenia rather than a distinct clinical entity [15]. Generally these psychotic symptoms are transient (minutes to hours) but there have been a few reports of symptoms persisting for weeks [30, 35]. Cannabis may also precipitate persistent psychotic symptoms even in individuals who do not have a history or family history of psychosis. However, severe or persistent psychotic
