CANNABIS INDUCED PSYCHOSIS - Everything Changed

[00:00:03]We're dealing with it every day. It's a reality for us. Cannabis induced psychosis is a reality.

[00:00:12]It's not something that's made up. It's not a fly by the seat of your pants uh opportunity to down cannabis.

[00:00:36]Well, I'm here to share my story about my uh my youngest son who suffers um cannabis induced psychosis and has been diagnosed later on with uh bipolar type one disord. disorder now. Gez, smart kid. Um, to begin with, since a child, he's been a very sweet child. Um, caring, loving, um, a lover of justice. He's been a lover of justice since since very young.

[00:01:15]I I noticed that when he was very young that he would defend people who he felt wasn't receiving justice or he felt they were wrong, he would defend them or step up for them. And he's always been that way since a kid. But he's also been a very smart kid. He's he he was he's been an honorroll student, AB honorroll student since uh he began school, right? and honoral student, athlete.

[00:01:48]He's been training, he's trained boxing since he was 5 years old, right?

[00:01:54]And he was very good nationals and regional championships and such.

[00:02:01]And sometime around when his mother and I divorced, I started to see some changes in his behavior. And this was he was nine years old, but it was so now it's him and I alone. His older siblings went off to college and it's him and I alone and we working through life and rebuilding our lives or or restructuring I should say restructuring our lives around not having his mother here anymore. But I noticed some changes there in behavior which led to later on him using uh marijuana. To start with, he uh started checking his food like regularly picking through his food like he was looking for something to be there that shouldn't be there. And we we picked up on that and uh it was odd, but it was all right.

[00:03:03]Well, he's been a fake key eater. He's been a ficky eater. So, nothing real strange, nothing too off about that, but I noticed that. And then things started to progress to where he would tell me he seen lights in his room at night, red, red lights. And I was like, well, I don't know. He seen something lights coming under the door. So, I said, well, I don't know. There's a possibility. you know, he's his his his room is right off the living room with a big, you know, window there. So, maybe some light could have came drifting under his door. And then from there, he went to uh someone's me, probably me, I'm coming into his room, cutting his hands at night. So, I was like, "No, son." So, I thought this is what he was telling his mother, though. So, his mother isn't with us.

[00:03:55]She lives in North Carolina. So I thought, "Oh man, maybe, you know, he's experiencing some feelings toward his mother and I not being together and needing to appease her or make her feel good about um having issues with his father, right?" you know, typical some things you might see with a child that's been after divorce, right? After their parents have divorced. So, that's what I thought of it. As much as I thought of, well, man, why are you telling your mother these things? It's it's not accurate. You know, your father isn't. There's nothing I would ever do to hurt you. You're my son. I love you to death. Why would I come into the room and cut your hands? And then there it's like no cuts on your hands. So naturally at first you think, "Oh man, he's fibbing. He's telling some stories. I don't know what that's about." But um it's something there. So I decided in agreement with his mother. I decided to start looking into some type of um teen counseling.

[00:05:10]Looked into the teen counseling. He was totally in opposition to it, but I kept pursuing it and he was still totally in opposition to it. And then boom, CO hit, right? So CO, all the kids are let out of school and sent home and everybody's home. So per our divorce agreement, he has to go spend some time with his mother during the off school. So he went over there um for quite a while. I believe the summer and just before um coming back just before school was returned, he came back home. So didn't really notice any changes. He was still a little off, but I I soon realized and learned that he had been smoking marijuana out there and plenty of it.

[00:06:10]But that wasn't the tipping point.

[00:06:13]The tipping point was when um I guess sophomore year I started getting calls from school about his behavior and things like that and something wasn't right and he was you know he just wasn't himself anymore because prior to that calls I used to get from teachers and assistant principles and what and everything like at was to praise him to say how well he was doing and the AP would call me and say uh you know I don't think that the regular classes are challenging enough for him because he he was preap classes AP classes he had those in the past and then he went back to normal classes and the the assistant principal would call and say well I don't think that the um those regular classes are challenging enough for him. And I would agree, okay, and then we'll get him something a little more challenging. But that sophomore year into that sophomore year in high school, the calls started to change in nature and they were calling about his behavior. So I was I was being called into this school, oh man, like every day of the month. It was it was just it was just I was like, "Well, what is going on here?

[00:07:42]What's happening? Something's happening." So, you know, you I try to talk to him and say, "Hey, son. Well, what's going on? Because this isn't you."

[00:07:50]So, he he started to tell me about people whispering in school. They're whispering about him. And I said, "Whispering about what?" He said, "Yeah, they whispering about me, but they don't think I hear them, but I do hear them."

[00:08:04]And he was having issues with that. But lo and behold, wasn't no one whispering about him. He was just psychotic. You know, he had psychosis. He was developing psychosis and he was hearing things, you know, uh having those um delusions as well as hallucinations, audible hallucinations.

[00:08:27]So, yeah, that's when it really things really began to change.

[00:08:37]He was convinced. He was totally convinced that they were talking about him. Um that they was whistling whispering about him in in in a bad way.

[00:08:48]And he was totally convinced. And then that's when he started to isolate himself from others and began to stay away from his friends and classmates that he normally hung out with.

[00:09:04]And also he developed a great degree of paranoia.

[00:09:12]He was so paranoid this one time that he called me at work.

[00:09:19]He and a friend was at the house. He called me at work and he was totally afraid, petrified of moving from where he was in the house until I came home and checked all the closets and under the beds. So, I didn't know what was going on. I I I left work. I said, "Hey, I got to go. I I have an emergency." So, I rushed home to see what was going on.

[00:09:42]And I mean, he was totally petrified.

[00:09:45]And I went ahead and appeased him by looking under the beds, knowing no one was there, looking under the beds. and in the closets and everything and he calmed down after that. But those again was the signs that I didn't quite know what was going on. You know, I didn't understand what was going on. I I had some inclination they were smoking marijuana, right?

[00:10:08]But I didn't realize he was smoking as much of it as he was and he was doing the vape. This is what they would do in in school because the vape is uh practically odorless.

[00:10:23]They would use that in school, right?

[00:10:27]And and and you know the vapes with the vapes, they they just take as many hits and draws on it as possible. So in school, they were smoking the vapes.

[00:10:38]This was everything. So I went through his uh his phone and everything and I'm looking around. I'm trying to find clues as to what's going on here. And I would keep seeing references to carts.

[00:10:50]C A R T. And and and I later found out that that was short for cartridges, right? So I didn't know what that was.

[00:10:58]What is this card? What is this card thing? What is this card thing? You know, [snorts] and um yeah, I later found out that it meant the cartridges for the THC oil that they were vaping at school. and he was buying them and I seen that they was paying about $35 for the cartridge and they were buying it and being supplied right in school from a upper classman or a classmate.

[00:11:28]One night my my now new wife and I were in our bedroom and he came running upstairs in a panic. Dad, dad, my chest hurt. I said, "Wow, son." Okay. and he fell on the floor crying my chest. So we got up, we rushed him to the hospital and this is when everything opened up to us. We rushed him to the hospital and when we got there to the hospital, he was cooperative at first until they wanted to introduce an IV.

[00:12:01]When they went to introduce the IV, this is when all heck broke loose. It just went from out of control there and he just went completely rabid, right? Uh I mean to cussing and fussing and just getting aggressive and no and y'all trying to do something to me. So his paranoia caused him to be combative, right? Because he was paranoid that the doctors were trying to do something to him. And it got so that they had to do a EOD, right? and uh me about two male nurses and four policemen. We all had to rrestle him down and strap him down to the bed and then they had to inject him with something that calmed him down and put him to sleep. So from there I knew something mad, something's going on. So they did um panels, drug panels and blood panels and everything and they're looking for substances and only thing that came back was the marijuana. Nothing in the system but marijuana.

[00:13:11]So that's when we learned the marijuana is doing something. But the doctors was what was saying, well, you you can't be too sure that it isn't any um other synthetic stuff, right? Because that doesn't just show up on a tox report. You have to do the special one.

[00:13:33]Okay. So, we went ahead and did the special one.

[00:13:37]Nothing there but the marijuana. So that's when we knew, okay, this marijuana is definitely causing what's going on here. We need to find out. We wasn't quite sure at that time, but the the they got psychiatrics involved, a psychiatric nurse, and whatever. So they said, "Hey, would you like to keep him here for a psychiatric evaluation?" I think, you know, me being as scared and fearful just like him at the time and unaware and just um the uncertainty of it all what was going on caused me to say no you know I just want to take my boy home hug him and you know try to care for him. So I said, "No, I'm not going to leave him here to do a psych evaluation." Cuz he was begging me, "Dad, daddy, please no." And it was heartbreaking. It was heart-wrenching. The very first time I had to wrestle him down, me and a bunch of other officers and nurses wrestle him down. He's screaming and yelling and and it it was absolutely heartbreaking. I don't know that anyone that can go through that as a parent, it wouldn't break their heart, right? So, my natural inclination was to just get my son home safe and try to nurse him back to health the best we could.

[00:15:09]But I think it was a missed opportunity really to start him on recovery at that time. So, we took him home and things just got worse. Things just got worse.

[00:15:24]Continue to get worse from there.

[00:15:30]Yeah.

[00:15:32]Then he started cutting school from there and just not going. And I would get calls about that. He hasn't showed up today. And then we would get into it in the evening. Hey, why didn't you go to school? And this that and the other thing. and you still just believe, hey, maybe it's teenage rebellion at this point. It's teenage rebellion until he started talking about um well, until he started hearing us in the house say things that we didn't say. Now, whatever he would hear something, then he would totally fly off the handle saying that we said it. I heard you. I know you said it. Why? you know, and just get outrageous.

[00:16:21]And until one day he uh he stopped eating altogether anything that was white because he said someone at the store we had ordered some uh was that GrubHub or it wasn't Uber Eats at the time. What what do they call that one that that come Well anyway food. We had some food delivered and he said someone either at the restaurant or uh the driver put semen in his food, you know. So he stopped eating anything that was white all together. Stopped anything that was white. And my wife and I, we had to start tiptoeing around that. And we learned like, hey, you know, we we can't feed him anything that's white cuz he's not going to eat it. Cuz every time he had something white on his plate, he would throw it away. No, you're trying to put semen in my food and throw it out. Oh, what's going on?

[00:17:20]No, we're not. So, anything. Anyway, things led and got worse and led to us having to call because we after leaving the hospital, they gave us information, little resources as they call it. Um, so we called the search team, the Houston search team, and they had a uh, you know, they ride around with a psychiatrist, psychologist, one or the other, with them, and they decided that, yeah, he was he was psychotic. He was in psychosis. and they took him to Bentop.

[00:17:57]And from Ben Tab, he went to West Oaks here in Houston, uh, West Oaks Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital, and they did toxicology, looking for whatever it might be, and didn't find anything but the marijuana.

[00:18:20]And it was determined by that doctor, the doctor that first saw him there that it was drug induced psychosis. So that was the diagnosis. It wasn't specifically cannabis induced psychosis, but drug induced psychosis, but the only drug they found was cannabis. So this is when we knew. And then I started me being a researcher and um a very analytical person, I started to dig deep and look for any answers I can find in terms of drug induced psychosis because really I I didn't know what psychosis was uh up until that point. This was my first introduction to psychosis. you know, I've heard of psychotic and, you know, a sociopath and all these different um diagnosis, but I didn't know exactly what psychosis was. So, I started to learn what psychosis was. And as I as I go down the rabbit hole, I started to come across more frequently across America that younger and younger children were coming to the ER.

[00:19:42]There was a flux of younger children coming to the ER with drug induced cannabis induced psychosis. And I said, "Wow, we got something here. So, let's keep following that line and see where it takes us." and and I've learned so much found so many things about synthetic uh THC produce. I don't know um if anyone is too familiar with or people who watch you can can make yourself familiar with a program that existed some time ago. It's called Conquer by Cannabis and it's uh um the Army Corps of Engineers uh actually created a synthetic THC. So the rabbit hole goes very deep, very very deep. And I continue to follow that line of research. And it it's it's more and more prevalent again across America that these younger children with the introduction of higher concentrations or higher potency THC are suffering cannabis induced psychosis.

[00:21:06]G where is he at now? He's been well MJ chooses to live uh in the streets homeless. He's been on the streets months at a time. He will come home every now and again. Uh one day he'll stay overnight, take a shower if I could get him to [snorts] shower, and um he's gone again for a month at a time just living in the streets. I have neighbors um from the old community or neighborhood we used to live in. We we're familiar over there. Everybody knows us. And uh yeah, they'll give me a call. Hey, I seen him today. He's out here with no shoes on.

[00:21:50]He not looking so good. I try to get him come home. And sometimes he comes home, but most of the time he doesn't. And he just lives in the street. He's been seen sleeping on the floor. In fact, there was a time an officer called me. I was leaving the gym early in the morning. It's about 5. I go get up at 4. I'm leaving the gym.

[00:22:14]It's about 5:00, 5:30. I get a call from an unknown number. It's a Texas number.

[00:22:21]I pick up and it's an officer on the other end and he ask he he's asking me, "Is [ __ ] do I know [ __ ] and is he my son?" And I said, "Yeah, what's going on?" I thought he was in some kind of trouble, but he said, "No, um he's not in trouble, but he was out here asleep in the parking lot of uh the restaurant there near the um drive-thru, and someone called for a wellness check."

[00:22:48]So, I went by to do the wellness check.

[00:22:49]He said, "Man, hey, I didn't even see him. I didn't know that was him. I thought he was a bag of garbage and I almost ran over him, you know. So, can you come and get him? And I immediately went and got him and yeah, he was disheveled, psychosis, manic, and um uncooperative.

[00:23:13]Didn't want to come home. Um insisted that I drop him off at a friend's house, which is never a friend's house. And uh he was right back in the streets.

[00:23:27]Honestly, I haven't figured out what to do next. I just pray and keep God in our lives and continue to research and reach out to all of the resources that are allegedly available any way I can and do my best to get him into programs that might help him because there was a a time going back that He and I were doing therapy together because he wouldn't do therapy on his own. I said, "How about if I join you with the therapy?" And man, it was a young gentleman. If you see it, Jacob, he was the best therapist that he's ever had because he was making some some breakthroughs.

[00:24:20]Uh Naji was actually interested in going and he enjoyed um Jacob. He enjoyed doing therapy with Jacob. He did because Jacob would do it in a way that they weren't we weren't just sitting there talking to one another. He had some interactive pieces where there was games introduced and stuff like chess cuz N and I we both like to play chess and and actually even in his when he's not in his right mind, he's still uh >> pretty good chess player. Yeah. still enjoys chess.

[00:25:00]So, I don't I don't know um what's next is what what the Lord allows, right?

[00:25:12]And you know, I've gotten four mental health warrants issued on him. So, he's been, you know, taken to the hospital against his will a number of times. I have to go down to the psychiatric uh Harris County Psychiatric Center and get the mental health warrants and and the whole thing.

[00:25:37]It's it's it just eats up your bandwidth, right?

[00:25:41]>> [snorts] >> It feels like uh that while I'm trying to manage his life, I'm still attempting to live my own. And it's just I pray for the wherewithal to to endure really. And I get up the next day ready to fight.

[00:26:02]That's it. Because he's my son and I'm not going to give up on him. That's absolutely out of the question. anytime that he's been away from the marijuana, he's had his medication, and he's been sober for a good 30, 40, 50 days.

[00:26:25]I see a semblance of my child, the son that I had, that kind, concerned with other people, compassionate, loving, intelligent, uh, likes to study history.

[00:26:46]Anytime that he is sober for a good length of time, he starts to come back. The minute, the minute, the day, the minute, the hour he smokes that marijuana, he starts to drift off. He starts to drift off. But I noticed that not so much with the regular flour. You know, he starts to drift off, but he smokes that that vape.

[00:27:20]All bets off. He's completely psychotic again. Like the blink blinking eye, he's completely psychotic again and out of his mind.

[00:27:36]And speaking to those vapes and the ease with which they can access it and regulations, I don't know how regulated it is. I'll tell you this one story here that I found a place that was selling my son the vapes and other younger people. And I was disgusted. I said, "I don't like this at all. You're selling these young people out of out of the bag, right? It's out of the back. It's not up front. It's out of the back. So, I already know that, hey, you're doing you're doing something illegal here because of the way you're selling it, the way you're distributing it. So, they're selling it to younger children.

[00:28:17]I see this because I go in and I'm doing some other uh commerce there. I'm buying something uh that they sell and I wouldn't want anybody's But anyway, I got the police involved. Got the police involved. sent them to their door and I don't know what happened.

[00:28:38]Whatever happened, they were gone.

[00:28:41]A few weeks later, I went down there. Oh man, store is gone. I I'm I'm having a celebratory dance.

[00:28:50]Too soon. Because about a week or two later, a few doors down, they were right back.

[00:28:57]Right back. Same people, same thing going on. same old same and and and and I and and I was defeated. I I felt quite defeated at that moment and said, "Wow, it feels like it's nothing I can do.

[00:29:14]It's nothing I can do if if if the law can't do anything. What can I do?"

[00:29:22]You know, and I said, "What what what what should I do? Continue to call and it'll just be a few doors down. they'll continue to move a few doors down. And I'd like to, if I can, speak to those persons who would say, you know, as you call them, the ptheads or the stoners that are in defense of their marijuana use, well, have at it. You know, if it doesn't affect you, have at it. But think a little and understand that everything doesn't affect everyone in the same way. If you enjoy it, by all means, you know, if you enjoy it, do your thing. But don't be so vocal in dismissing other people's realities because we know what we're dealing with. We see what we dealing with. We're dealing with it every day.

[00:30:15]It's a reality for us. Cannabis induced psychosis is a reality.

[00:30:22]It's not something that's made up. It's not a fly by the seat of your pants uh opportunity to down cannabis and and and if we're speaking to it really cannabis marijuana today isn't what it was in the days of the hippie when they were smoking white joints. Now today, you have all of this other stuff that is introduced into the cannabis culture and you're smoking again high potency THC without the CBD that balances it and um counteracts the psychoactive ingredient in the marijuana. So, this isn't uh a sweeping indictment of all cannabis users. I mean, if you enjoy it, enjoy it. But please be mindful and considerate of other people's pain, hurt, and reality of watching their children go through something so extreme and so heart-wrenching that it's I liken it to mourning the loss of a loved one every day. You have to wake up to that same funeral every day. Every day or to that same call you got 3:00 a.m. in the morning that said one of your loved ones passed.

[00:31:57]This is every day constantly. It doesn't go away. So, you're living with the constant mourning of someone who was actually still alive. But you have to mourn their loss every day because they're no longer there or they're no longer the person that they once were.

[00:32:17]So to the cannabis users who watch these videos on YouTube and you make your sch snide comments in the remark section.

[00:32:28]Um do a little research, have a little humility, be compassionate, be considerate.

[00:32:36]Everything doesn't affect everyone the same. And if you enjoy marijuana, knock yourself out, but everyone doesn't need to do it. And this isn't a sweeping indictment of you all. Have at it.

[00:32:54]This for me has become a calling.

[00:32:58]Right? I don't mock it. I appreciate it.

[00:33:03]So I hate that my son is going through it, but for me it has turned into something that has caused me to become somewhat of an activist to better the lives of other people and put this out and get this information out here. Because again, there are those peoples who would say, "Oh man, you're out of your mind. You're all a quacks.

[00:33:35]This isn't happening to your children.

[00:33:37]It's because of X, Y, and Z." As though they're authorities, right? Haven't read one paper, haven't read any literature, they just high on the sofa veging out and they become authorities on all things cannabis. Okay, great. [snorts] But yeah, so I just look at it like this. God has placed something in in in in my life that will give me life to go out and help improve others lives and fight a battle that needs to be fought.

[00:34:13]And I'm glad to fight it. I'm glad to fight it. And then I believe and I trust that one day my son will be telling his story of how he overcame cannabis induced psychosis and drug abuse, marijuana abuse because they said at one point there's evidence out now also that cannabis is addictive.

[00:34:40]It used to be so such that cannabis wasn't addictive and that's why it was labeled as a different scheduled drug than those that are more addictive. I don't have the right I can't cite the source right here right now but and as of recently cannabis has been labeled as addictive. There's plenty of studies that prove it. And also uh one thing I'd like to speak to is somehow I'm in this fight and somehow me and we are going to get it done where insurance starts to address marijuana, cannabis induced psychosis and its addiction a little different because they don't pay for insurance won't pay for residential treatment if it's only cannabis. This is what I was told. Well, it's only cannabis. So, insurance won't pay for it. It's only cannabis. It's only marijuana. It's only No, no, no.

[00:35:46]This thing is addictive nowaday. know that the withdrawals might not cause them to kill over and clutch their heart right there and there, but it's so addictive that yes, they do need residential treatment because it's no way to just wean well, I wouldn't say no way. I don't want to speak out of turn.

[00:36:08]It's difficult to just wean yourself off outside of any structural program and that may be a residential program somewhere to be. As of late, I went ahead and um because he's out there in the street and he's not coming home, I I just decided, hey, we got to go get him a place of his own. you know, I've been filling out uh applications for um income housing, etc., etc., etc., And until maybe that comes through or don't, I went ahead and decided to get him his own place somewhere that's not too uh strenuous, financially strenuous and something that, you know, we can do. So, he'll have his own place. And I'm I'm praying and I'm hoping that that having his own situation, his own place, that that would kind of help him to say, I like this. I don't want to be in the street. I like having some semblance of independence. This is mine. So maybe I'll start taking care of it and kind of uh, you know, re rewire his thinking. um tap into some of that neuroplasticity that you know is so often talked about in science about changing the way you think. And that's what I do. I try to introduce new ideas and new um concepts and things to consume that will rewire his thinking and stretch his mind and affect some neuroplasticity so that he won't no longer think that in the way he does because I do know that [snorts] well a lot of who you are is what you think about yourself. And he has those those thoughts and those voices in his head that's telling him, you know, he's bought into the idea that >> he he isn't good for anything. You know, he's bored into the idea that uh why go on? I can't do this. I can't do that. um you know it's it's internal internal dialogue internal dialogue a lot of internal dialogue is >> you know contributing to the addiction and I try to get them to understand that you know >> that negative talk that negative self-t talk you can't let that win that negative self-t talk will make you give up on yourself and you you know I've always told him even since he boxed since we started training at 5 years So I told him, "Hey man, you know, I've always told him, me, your mother, your family members, none of us can believe in you more than you believe in yourself." You know, none of us can believe in you more than you believe in yourself. That's the only way to achieve. You're going to achieve from what you believe, not what we believe.

[00:39:27]You know, I believe you're great. You have to believe it yourself. If you believe you're great, then you can go ahead, show up, and be great. But if you don't, and I do, [snorts] it's good for nothing.