Mother Raises Alarm about Suicide Caused by Cannabis-Induced Psychosis in Ontario Teen

November 14, 2024 TruthUSA

The risk of psychosis for teens using cannabis has become increasingly clear to researchers in Canada and abroad in recent years—and it’s tragically clear to Troy and Tara Neufeld of Westport, Ontario.

Their daughter, Mila, died by suicide in 2021 at the age of 18. What drove her to that point became evident little by little in the following weeks as the Neufelds spoke to Mila’s friends and read through her diary.

“She was talking about ants crawling on her hair,” Tara Neufeld told The Epoch Times, recalling one of her daughter’s last journal entries and her descent into psychosis. “She called one of her friends in absolute abject terror because she said she was hiding in the closet and there were little girls outside with knives that were trying to get into the closet.”

Neufeld hopes people will become more aware of the risks so other young people, and their families, won’t suffer like her family has.

Since recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada in 2018, some studies have shown young people increasingly see it as harmless. For Canadians aged 15–17, cannabis use has become “a normalized behaviour since legalization” and is seen as “harmless and enjoyable,” according to a 2022 Health Canada-commissioned report on youth perspectives.

‘Not Just a Plant Anymore’

The study published in Psychological Medicine noted the average tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) potency of illicit herbal cannabis in Canada has increased from roughly 1 percent in 1980 to 20 percent in 2018.

Vaping pens sold by government-approved retailers in Ontario often have a concentration of 80–100 percent THC.

Mila’s diary detailed her first use of a cannabis vaping pen several months before her death. She rapidly became dependent on vape pens and struggled to control her use.

“It’s a laboratory product,” Neufeld said. “This is literally a pharmaceutical. It’s not just a plant anymore. It’s kind of like saying Aspirin is white willow bark.” She also compared it to a bottle of vodka versus moonshine. “You can’t go to the LCBO and buy moonshine for a reason, right?”

The use of cannabis vaping products are on the rise, with a 59 percent increase in sales in the 2022–23 fiscal year, according to Statistics Canada.

The review said one of the “well known” risks of frequently using high-potency products is that there is substantial evidence of such use being associated with the development of schizophrenia or psychosis.

This may be well known to science, but it wasn’t well known to Neufeld, nor apparently to the adults—including a school counsellor—Mila reached out to for help. It wasn’t well known to Mila or her friends, who might otherwise have understood what was happening.