Legalized Marijuana and the Mental Health Crisis in America; Dr. Daniel Amen

Is the legalization of marijuana connected to the escalating mental health crisis in America? What do brain scans reveal about the use of marijuana, caffeine, alcohol, food additives, and our brain health?

On VitalSigns, Dr. Daniel Amen joins host Brendon Fallon to probe the “harmless” things we put into our bodies that can affect brain age, self-control, and happiness.

“Psychiatrists, in general, are the only medical doctors who virtually never look at the organ they treat,” says the veteran psychiatrist whose videos scanning the brains of influences, actors, and musicians have garnered millions of views.

Dr. Amen uses specialized imaging to identify “good activity, too little, and too much” activity in specific parts of the brain. This gives him and his patients “a map” to understand factors beyond psychology that are affecting their mental health.

“If I was an evil ruler, and I wanted to create more mental illness, I’d have the policy we have now with marijuana. Marijuana is not innocuous. It increases the risk of anxiety, depression, psychosis, and suicide. If a teenager starts using marijuana, like you said, the idea in society now is it innocuous, that’s a lie.  It’s not innocuous. And, it doesn’t affect everybody the same. There’s some people who it doesn’t seem to affect them much.  But, there’s a whole other group of people where it increases the risk of psychosis 450%. I published a study on 1000 marijuana users compared to healthy brains. Virtually every area of their brain was lower in activity. I published another study on how the brain ages with over 60,000 scans. We looked in our database and said what accelerates aging in the brain, and having schizophrenia that was the worst, but the second worst was someone who used marijuana. Marijuana is not innocuous. And, when you just think of the message in our society, ‘vaping so healthier form of smoking’, that’s a lie. Or, alcohol is a healthy, that’s a lie.  Or, marijuana is an innocuous, that’s a lie. I’ve been a psychiatrist for 40 years, so I’ve seen all sorts of different iterations of marijuana and I’m just not a fan of it at all. ”

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