Schizophrenia affects less than one percent of the US population. Symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking, and poor motivation. Disorganized speech is also a common symptom of schizophrenia. Like the cure for the disorder, experts are yet to unravel the cause of schizophrenia. Research on the cause of schizophrenia has included the patients’ genetics, conducting behavioral analysis, and conducting advanced imaging of the brain function and structure. Expectedly, there are many misconceptions about the disease because of its complexity. For instance, some think schizophrenia is the same as split or multiple personalities. Also, it is a common misconception that people with schizophrenia are more violent than most people in the general population. Furthermore, it is not true that schizophrenic people end up living in hospitals or becoming homeless. This paper explores the relationship between the use of hallucinogenic drugs and the development of schizophrenia.
According to Krebs & Johansen (2013), no studies over the years have suggested that hallucinogens could lead to long-term mental problems, including schizophrenia. Millions of doses of hallucinogens over the last 40 years got consumed, and well-documented reports have not shown related mental health problems. In the 1960s, hallucinogens increased tremendously, but there was no documented increase in mental health issues (Krebs & Johansen, 2013). Classical hallucinogens have caused mental issues or caused congenital disabilities through genetic alteration. Undeniably, hallucinogens cause emotional turmoil and a period of confusion as immediate drug effects. Also, most users of hallucinogens take them to elicit spiritually meaningful experiences and deep personal adventures. However, hallucinogens have not resulted in any schizophrenic symptoms among the users.
Therefore, Krebs & Johansen (2013) concludes in their study that no undesirable mental health outcome is attributable to the use of hallucinogens. The study’s serious mental health problems include psychological distress, panic disorder, major depressive episodes, and mania. Also, mental health problems included in the analyses by Krebs & Johansen (2013) are social phobia, agoraphobia, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder. No positive association is apparent between hallucinogenic use and the mentioned mental disorders. Nevertheless, the study’s major limitation by Krebs & Johansen (2013) is its retrospective design. Therefore, one might have challenges drawing causal inferences from the study relating to the relationship between the use or cause of hallucinogens and the development of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.
According to (Nichols, 2016), a study conducted between 2001 and 2004 found that there was no significant relationship between the use of the hallucinogen and negative mental health impact among the respondents. Interestingly, the study concluded a lower rate of mental health problems among hallucinogenic drug users. The study, therefore, could not point out any evidence that psychedelics were independently a risk factor for mental health among the respondents (Nichols, 2016). Furthermore, the study also concluded that psychedelics could be associated with decreased inpatient psychiatric treatment.
A study by Carhart-Harris et al. (2018) further suggests otherwise, citing the relationship between hallucinogens and schizophrenia as a mental disorder. The study points out that post hallucinogenic drug therapy participants report a positive reconnection to their past values and pleasures. The study analyses how hallucinogenic drug therapy influences the reconnection of the patients back to self and society (Carhart-Harris et al., 2018). Therefore, instead of resulting in worse mental disorders such as schizophrenia, the hallucinogenic treatment is bedrock to the connection of the patients to others and the world.
Since the 1940s, there have been tremendous discoveries in the use of hallucinogens in treating psychiatric disorders. The findings are exactly contrary to the speculations that hallucinogens could be a probable cause of the development of schizophrenia. If schizophrenia gets caused by hallucinogen use, then there would be apparent results in the patients with psychiatric disorders treated using hallucinogenic drugs. In the 1960s, there was a rise in the studies evaluating the impact of LSD conducted on both healthy and psychiatric disorders [patients (Reiff et al., 2020). At first, the psychological outcomes of LSD on the participants got mistaken for the syndromes of schizophrenia (Reiff et al., 2020). However. It was not long before studies revealed that the symptoms were only evident in participants with a family history of schizophrenia. Therefore, it suffices to conclude that the studies could not prove that LSD does cause schizophrenia.
Furthermore, LSD has recorded positive improvements in patients with alcohol use disorder. Also, the patients with alcohol use disorder initially show LSD-induced behavioral changes. However, the behavioral changes do not last, followed by alleviating the alcohol use disorder symptoms (Reiff et al., 2020). Preliminary LSD trials have shown positive outcomes in alleviating symptoms among patients with mood disorders. Also, results have been similar with anxiety among terminally ill patients and migraine headaches (Reiff et al., 2020). There have been no reports of schizophrenic symptoms among the patients on whom LSD has been used in all of the mentioned cases.
Ly et al. (2018) highlight that hallucinogens have great potential for treating mental disorders, including depression. The hallucinogens highlighted by Ly et al. (2018) include LSD, DMT, and DOI, which the study claims that they promote spine growth and increase dendritic arbor complexity. Also, Ly et al. (2018) argue that hallucinogens have faster beneficial effects on patients with depression, PTSD, and other psychological disorders than the current antidepressant drugs. Therefore, it is arguable that hallucinogens should get taken as a better remedy for mental health conditions instead of trying to fix them as a cause of the development of schizophrenia. The positive structural changes caused by the hallucinogens in the growth of the neurites and the spines would be a better way to counteract the loss of dendritic spines and eliminate synapses, which are common causes of mental illness health problems.
Psychedelics have even inspired new hope in the treatment of mental disorders. Compared to the treatments currently available, psychedelics seem to promise more based on their beneficial effects and the rate they register results. Firstly, clinical results show that hallucinogens have a broad therapeutic. Secondly, psychedelics have sustained therapeutic effects (Vargas et al., 2021). Hallucinogens are robustly involved in developing structural and functional neural plasticity, which is instrumental in mental health. The study by (Vargas et al., 2021) further proves that hallucinogens cannot be a probable cause of schizophrenia but a potential treatment of mental health conditions.
A medical survey conducted in the united states showed users of LSD and similar drugs were no more likely to have mental health disorders. Therefore, the survey challenges the growing fears that psychedelic drugs could lead to schizophrenia or any other mental health condition. The fears, especially propagated among the public for years, have suggested that hallucinogens, especially the classical ones such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, cause mental health disorders in an individual at some point in their life. It might be for the prevalence of psychological disorders that people seem to blame anything for their cause. Schizophrenia is even worse, with misconceptions getting as intense as the fears of the disorder escalate among the masses.
In another case-control study among native Americans, there was no evidence of any mental health deficits among people who use peyote regularly in their religious activities. Instead, people that used peyote for a better part of their lifetime apparently had better mental health conditions (Krebs & Johansen, 2013). Such a study also negates the proposition that hallucinogens could be a probable cause of schizophrenia. People who had used psychedelic dimethyltryptamine in their religious drink ayahuasca scored significantly better on psychopathology tests than those who did not use the drink (Krebs & Johansen, 2013). The psychedelic dimethyltryptamine is chemically similar to psilocybin. Nevertheless, while hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, and others have no medical evidence for causing schizophrenia, it is worth taking caution concerning the psychiatric disorders LSD causes. Long-term psychiatric disorders associated with LSD include panic attacks, depression, and other anxiety disorders.
Therefore, allegations that hallucinogens such as LSD cause schizophrenia might be from rumors of worst-case scenarios, politics, or cultural biases. No tangible scientific study has revealed that hallucinogens cause schizophrenia or other mental disorders. On the contrary, hallucinogens seem to present better treatment solutions for mental disorders. Claims regarding hallucinogens causing mental disorders might have been due to the moral panic against psychedelics, especially in the 20th century. Below are the common hallucinogens debated hotly regarding their use and the development of schizophrenia;
Cannabis
Although most studies on relationships between psychedelics and schizophrenia have resulted in adverse outcomes, those involving cannabis are controversially opposite. Some studies suggest a high frequency of psychotic disorders among frequent users of marijuana. Other studies indicate that there is double the risk of schizophrenia development among people that have used marijuana, especially from a younger age. The use of cannabis among adolescents negatively impacts the individual’s cognition because of significant brain matter loss caused by the hallucinogen (Patel et al., 2020). People with schizophrenia with a history of marijuana have also shown controversial signs. For instance, heavy cannabis use after a schizophrenic spectrum diagnosis sometimes causes more relapses and hospitalizations (Patel et al., 2020). Imaging studies also show detrimental effects on brain morphology, causing even worse symptoms than schizophrenia. In other studies, people with schizophrenia using marijuana cause the disorder’s symptoms to surface earlier in life.
Conclusion
However, it is vital to establish how hallucinations caused by mental disorders such as schizophrenia are not the same as those caused by hallucinogens. Even more precisely, hallucinogens do not cause actual hallucinations as psychotic disorders do. All hallucinogens do is result in a pseudo-hallucination because they only change the common perception of an individual. In the united states, hallucinogens are schedule I drug, and therefore very few studies on them. On the other hand, schizophrenia is still a mystery in the medical field, even though it impairs the life of several people globally. As such, the effect of both hallucinogens and schizophrenia is still largely unknown. Therefore it is quite challenging to establish whether hallucinogens play a vital role in developing schizophrenia. However, from the studies explored so far, it is improbable that hallucinogens could be instrumental in the development of schizophrenia.
References
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