The results were crystal clear. The team found that in people with two copies of the “normal” version of COMT [a gene], smoking cannabis had little effect on their mental health. In people with one normal and one “bad” form of the gene, smoking cannabis slightly increased their risk of psychosis. But for people with two copies of the bad gene, cannabis spelled trouble: smoking it as a teenager increased their likelihood of developing psychosis by a factor of 10. The results have not yet been published, and Cannon warns that they need replicating, but even so she says “this is a very large effect, similar to the size of smoking and lung cancer. This is a very significant finding.” Case, perhaps, closed.
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