There are two stories behind why people start using cannabis: for fun, or to ease the mind.
A new paper from King’s College London, published in BMJ Mental Health, says those two starting points are linked to different mental-health trajectories. But I think we need to do some debunking here. For starters, it isn’t the study’s conclusion that bothers me; that’s not what prompts this piece. It’s the way some media outlets have used it as a platform to revive the old, well-known cannabis stigma and the same long-standing spread of misinformation. It’s a crime without penalties but with real victims: recreational cannabis users, medical cannabis patients, and potential users who might be discouraged by a clickbait headline.
What some headlines actually said. On August 27, 2025, The Guardian ran: “Cannabis users who are self-medicating run a higher risk of paranoia.” King’s College London’s press office framed it similarly: “using cannabis as a means to self-medicate physical or mental discomfort can have a negative impact on the levels of paranoia, anxiety, and depression.” Those are causal-sounding summaries of a survey that, in the paper itself, is framed as associations on symptom scales, not diagnoses.
Fortunately, science has rules. And if you read the paper closely, the conclusions should be modest(er).
The study analyzed 3,389 adults who had used cannabis at some point, none with a history of psychosis. Researchers asked a deceptively simple question: Why did you first use cannabis? People who said they began to manage pain, anxiety, or depression later reported higher scores for paranoia, anxiety, and depression than those who started for fun or curiosity. On average, participants reported heavy consumption when expressed in standard THC units, and the self-medication groups tended to consume more. These are associations in a cross-sectional …
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Author: Rolando García / High Times
