Young friend with paranoid delusions, hearing voices, heavy pot smoker

Hi. In Alameda County, check out prepwellness.org. Other counties in the Bay Area have PREP programs as well. 

I've had to learn a lot about psychosis and schizophrenia over the years because of a close family member and think this organization is doing great work. 

Yes, this happened to a friend of mine! A young man, 29, who had smoked a lot of strong pot. All of a sudden he started spouting conspiracy theories -- it sounds funny now, but he literally thought the French were planning an attack on San Francisco! (I told him that a) the French are too xenophobic to bother wih us , and b) if they did come, the food would get better. By the time he got to his mother's house for Mothers Day he was hearing voices. I had called ahead and warned her that he was going down and needed serious help.

His family immediately sprung into action and had him (involuntarily!) hospitalized. He was given anti-psychotic medication and miraculously returned to his old self. There are many that work well, but it's a bit trial and error.

The challenge is to get the person to KEEP taking the meds. If they don't, they go off the rails.

It's fantastic that we live in a day and age where these people can be helped. You're a good person to want to be involved, and I encourage you to continue. These people are a suicide risk if they don't get the meds they need.

My friend, alas, stopped taking the meds and ended up homeless for a time. But things are better now.

Haldol is a very old drug that works but has lots and lots of side effects.  There are better ones now and obviously it's not a one-size-fits-all situation.  That is, Haldol may not work for him. Hopefully, he has some kind of insurance that will cover his treatment.  It's a medical condition like any other and needs good care from a specialist trained in psychiatric disorders. Best of luck to him.  It's a terrible disease.

Oh, and btw, I haven't read the studies but it's possible that the link between teen pot usage and schizophrenia is more a case of self-medicating against the early symptoms, and not a cause of the disease.

There is an organization called Prep (prevention and recovery in early psychosis) which may be helpful to you in your efforts to learn more about this issue. (https://www.askprep.org/about-us). If there is appropriate intervention when young people first start to show signs of psychosis, there is much greater chance of better outcomes. 

This particular organization is just for alameda county but if this young man lives outside of Alameda County, they could probably direct you to similar organizations in other counties. 

It's really kind of you to reach out to support him. Good luck to both of you, 

My brother had a delusional psychotic episode a few years ago that was very like schizophrenia, but he was in his early 50s. He was a small-time pot grower and a heavy user since his teens. He became convinced that members of a worldwide drug conspiracy were trying to kill him, and were following him on black motorcycles. He was so distraught that he abandoned his home in central California and came to stay with me here in Bay Area, but he left abruptly after only two days because they were following him here, too.  He then went to live on the UC Santa Cruz campus, sleeping under a tree. After a few weeks of alerting UCSC police every time he saw a black motorcycle, he was hospitalized involuntarily. He felt very safe in the hospital, although when he was released a few weeks later he asked us to rent a helicopter to pick him up from the roof since motorcycles were circling the hospital waiting for him. It sounds funny, but he really was terrified.

The doctor at the hospital told me that they regularly see patients who are heavy pot smokers suffering from schizophrenia-like symptoms (my brother had given me permission to talk to his docs, otherwise I wouldn't have known about this.) I then did some research on my own and found studies that showed that some percentage of the population is susceptible to psychotic episodes from marijuana use. I remembered from my own pot-smoking days how some of my friends would say that pot made them "paranoid" so they didn't smoke, and I stopped smoking pot myself in my late 20's after having what I now realize were panic attacks while I was high. So I knew that getting high is not trouble-free relaxation for everybody, but I really did not know it could cause psychosis in some cases.  By that time I had already raised two teens thinking that pot was far less harmful than alcohol, and looking the other way when they went out back to smoke.  My brother served as a powerful counter-example to our previous beliefs.

Fortunately, my brother stopped smoking pot. He was on anti-anxiety meds for a year, which calmed his fears enough to be able to live with us, and for a year we watched over him and tried to get him back on his feet.  Eventually he was able to resume an independent life, although there are certain areas of conversation that we avoid, because he still believes the drug mafia was after him back then, but for some reason they have now lost interest in him.  His doctor told me she didn't know if he would get better, but he did.  So maybe that means that if your friend's son's psychosis is caused by marijuana, it can get better by stopping marijuana.  I hope so.