Clinician: 'I Was Wrong About Cannabis'

(Other Parents Like Me) For years, I believed cannabis was relatively harmless. As a clinician specializing in teens and young adults, I thought, “At least it’s not opioids.” Throughout the opioid crisis, I worked tirelessly with clients and downplayed cannabis use, seeing it as a rite of passage and something most young people experimented with. I reassured panicked parents, considering the risk manageable compared to other substances.

I was wrong.

What started as occasional cases of paranoia or anxiety among my clients turned into something darker. I began encountering teens hospitalized with delusions and hallucinations after using high-potency THC products. Some developed severe psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. These cases ceased to be rare or extreme. Today’s cannabis is not what many of us tried in college. It’s often ten times stronger, and it’s harming our young people.

One defining moment was a 17-year-old who had never shown signs of mental illness. After several months of daily cannabis use, he was hospitalized for psychosis. He believed his parents were actors, the hospital a government trap, and he needed to escape. It was terrifying—for him, his family, and for me, a professional who had underestimated this risk.

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