Joe Rogan on health: what the evidence says · JRE #2018
SUBJECT: HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
this guy Alex Berenson wrote a book about it it's called tell your children and uh it's about how there's a certain percentage of people that especially with high dose thc they can have a schizophrenic break or a psychotic break something goes wrong
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, did author the 2019 book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, which argues that THC can trigger psychosis in some users. On the underlying science, Rogan's modest framing (a certain percentage of people, especially with high-dose THC, can have a psychotic or schizophrenic break) aligns with peer-reviewed findings: a multicentre case-control study in The Lancet Psychiatry (EU-GEI, 2019) found daily use of high-potency cannabis (THC 10 percent or greater) carried roughly five times the odds of a first psychotic episode versus never-users (odds ratio 4.8). The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse states that cannabis intoxication can induce a temporary psychotic episode in some people, especially at high doses, and that heavy use is linked to schizophrenia, particularly in young men and those with genetic vulnerability. The main caveat is that whether high-potency THC directly causes psychosis (versus a bidirectional or genetically confounded association) remains debated, and Berenson's book itself was criticized by researchers for overstating causation, but Rogan's narrower statement that it affects a certain percentage of people is well supported.