Genes, Pot, and Mental Illness: A Connection? | JRE Pot Debate

I think there's a big problem with education, a big problem with the education that edible marijuana, as we talked about before, I think you were in the bathroom, the 11-hydroxymetabolite, it's processed by the liver, it's a radically different drug, radically different. And it's really a psychedelic and a very, for me personally, edible marijuana and flotation tanks, I might as well be taking a fucking bucket of acid because it is a crazy goddamn experience. Now, I personally enjoy being paranoid. And I know this sounds crazy, but I think with me, it gives me, and I think I live a pretty blessed life. And I like the feeling of paranoia because it allows me to explore maybe some area, like maybe I'm too confident. Is it a specific paranoia that you have? It's a freak out, man. I think I have maybe an abundance of confidence. Maybe I have too much, right? Maybe I'm too successful. What I like about the paranoia that comes with edible marijuana is it allows me to check myself. It allows me to put myself, examine all of my behavior and the darkest recesses of my mind, my thoughts, and it gives me a pers... And it makes me a nicer person. It might knock you down with ego just a little tiny bit. Yeah, you're doing for sure. Just like the other psychedelics. I think it just gives you just a little... It knocks down your ego just a little. Some people use it at the end of the day and then like Joe said, I think it makes you reflect sometimes better and more objectively. Meaning that maybe you had an encounter with someone earlier in the day and then late at night, you're like, oh man, I probably should have done things a little bit different. That happens to people all the time. It forces you to reflect in a different state. And sometimes when you reflect in that state, you come up with thoughts that you just want to come up with before. And like my patients say to me all the time, it just kind of breaks this negative state that I have. I'm just able to break out of a negative state and think logically. People say that to me all the time. But see, to me, you're talking about something different and it works for you, right? Your paranoia, it sounds more almost existential. It's how can I be a better person? What am I doing wrong in my life? It's not my wife is poisoning me. No, no, no, Joe. No, Joe. Like this is funny. When you're schizophrenic and you use... Or the cops aren't going to bust through the fucking door and shoot me. That's a different thing. And that's why marijuana drives this extreme violence in some people. Or those people need to get their fucking shit together. That's possible too. Well, I mean, listen, it's... The aliens aren't really coming, bro. But they may need to be intervened before. And to Joe's point though, they have shown in studies that if you make an intervention outside of the psychotic symptoms, you can actually reduce the incidence of violence. And also too, I think it's a good point. I was going to mention earlier to bring up genetics because we are teasing out genetics for people and we are discovering that certain people do have certain genetics that do predispose them to certain cannabis disorders. So I'm involved with a company that's doing that right now. We're trying to create cannabis genetic tests for people. And there's three genes that we've identified so far. One of them is the MAPK14 genotype. And that has been shown to be associated with a deficit in brain volume when you do use cannabis. And then there's two other genes, the ACT1 and the CADM2 genotype. Both of those have also been shown to be associated with cannabis. But again, how many people have them? The MAPK14 is roughly about 8% is what we're seeing. The ACT1 is around 4% and the CADM2 is around 5%. But that's almost 20% of the population. But if we can identify, I love that stuff, lines me. Yeah, it's wicked. So if we can identify the people who are at risk, then we can maybe potentially use the medicine in a way where only the people who don't have these genetics are using the medicine. And then for the people who do have these genetics, they stick mostly to CBD. I just think that's a better approach than just kind of prohibiting cannabis or saying that we shouldn't use it at all or saying that it's not medicine. I think that it should be held to the same standard as any other medicine. And I think that if we had an incredible medicine that worked for some people and that didn't work for others, then what we would do is we would try to figure out why. And I've been doing that, my company's been doing that. It's called Anant Life, full disclosure. I am on the board, anantlife.com. And when we use these different strategies, then we can actually reduce the overall harm. And that should be another thing that we can add into the mix because for sure, there's people who are definitely more predisposed mental illness and definitely more predisposed to psychosis.