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Hello richard Berryessa,   Marijuana use and schizophrenia:  I'll leave you with this cut-and-paste from the blog on MTV's Web site that accompanied their True Life: I Have Schizophrenia documentary last week.   Ken Duckworth, M.D., the medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) had this to say about the topic, referring to one of the young adults featured in the documentary:   Q: Josh smokes a lot of marijuana. How does smoking marijuana generally affect someone with schizophrenia? Dr. Duckworth: "Josh smoking marijuana raises his risk for trouble in several ways. Marijuana raises the risk that a person will develop schizophrenia in the first place-one estimate says 10% of people with schizophrenia smoked marijuana heavily before age 15. We also know that people who use marijuana who also have schizophrenia do not do as well when it comes to the important elements of being independent, like holding down a job, maintaining personal relationships, or keeping an apartment. Finally marijuana may make hallucinations worse. Narcotics Anonymous, Smart Recovery and AA are helpful pieces to the puzzle for many people with co-occurring substance issues. Most kids associate using alcohol with normal life and social interaction, so this is a real challenge in treatment for younger people with the illness."   There you have it.  If a person wants to make sure he or she never recovers from schizophrenia, by all means marijuana use will achieve this goal.   If a person would love to develop schizophrenia, heavy marijuana use would certainly be a factor in making this happen.   Sorry to be truthful, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.    Of course, no one makes these choices consciously, but marijuana is a drug, and drug use is never a good idea.  I knew a guy who smoked pot to the tune of thousands of dollars a year, and while he may not have developed schizophrenia, he couldn't get through daily events, or major occasions, without smoking a bowl first.  Marijuana isn't harmless.  This guy was a daily pot smoker, and his brain was fried.  FRIED.  He was fired from every job he ever held, by the way.  Not a ringing endorsement of the benefits of marijuana use.   Respectfully, Chris