“I damned myself to hell,” he wrote in a note left behind. “I can only help my friends and pray. I killed my memory for no reason — now I’m just a burnt out star. I bit off more truth than I could handle. My eyes — I killed them. I shouldn’t let them open anymore — I’m a ghost. Why? No reason.”
According to Ann, Brant’s doctor said he experienced cannabis-induced psychosis. Brant believed God was angry at him for smoking marijuana, started reading the Bible obsessively and even thought he was the second coming of Christ.
“Sometimes those problems have resolved in a matter of months or a year, after the person has stopped using cannabis,” said Dr. David Streem, Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital’s chief of psychiatry and medical director of the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center. “Sometimes they don’t, and the person has lifelong psychotic symptoms as a result of cannabis.”
Some patients experience hallucinations that involve voices commenting on a person’s actions or saying insulting things about the person. Others experience paranoia such as delusions that they are being watched or are incapable of certain things.
According to one study, 30% of cases of schizophrenia among men aged 21–30 were linked to cannabis use disorder.
“You’re playing Russian roulette with your brain,” said Lori Robinson, director of Moms Strong, a parent support group that aims to educate families and young people that cannabis is not safe for everyone.
In 2009, Lori’s 23-year-old son Shane had just married his longtime girlfriend. Shane was a handsome, 6’4” young man with a “zest for life,” his mother remembered.
That same year, he suffered a knee injury while wakeboarding. While recovering from surgery, Shane developed an intolerance to his pain medications and started using cannabis. Despite his parents’ concerns, he insisted it was a harmless herb that helped manage his pain.
Then, Lori got a call that Shane was not acting himself and had been taken to a hospital. When she arrived, medical staff were already releasing Shane, unable to hold him because he did not pose a danger toward himself or others.
As she and her husband drove Shane home, he asked them if they saw the bombed-out buildings and said he needed to save President Barack Obama. At one point, he attempted to jump out of the moving car.
“I kept thinking, ‘Who is this imposter? It’s an alien. This is not my kid,’” Lori said.
Ultimately, Lori was able to admit her son into a private psychiatric hospital. There, Lori said Shane attempted to escape and had to be sedated by the medical team.
“He was very physically active, and very gregarious, outgoing, loved by pretty much everyone that ever met him,” Lori said. “A really good kid, and unfortunately, he made a fatal mistake.”
After a two-year cycle of relapse and hospitalization, including a second psychotic break, Shane took his own life at 25 years old.
Read the full article at this link: https://kentwired.com/120770/news/cannabis-induced-psychosis-cost-their-sons-their-lives-more-could-be-next/
