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Hello richard Berryessa,   My original answer to your question mysteriously disappeared after the upgrades were made to to the Connection site.   I quoted Dr. Ken Duckworth, the NAMI medical director, who posted answers to a blog in response to MTV's documentary, True Life: I Have Schizophrenia.   Here is the question, and his response:   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.   To sum up, if you unintentionally wanted to develop schizophrenia, you'd make the choice to smoke marijuana heavily.  If you had schizophrenia, and somehow weren't concerned about your recovery, you'd continue to smoke marijuana.   I understand that some people decide to try drugs; no one is immune from making this choice.  However, marijuana isn't a harmless drug.  I knew a guy whose brain was fried from smoking so much weed, and he couldn't get through any important meetings or events without smoking a bowl first.  By the way, this guy was fired from every jobv he ever had.  Sad, sad.   Respectfully, Chri