2023-12-28 10:29:07
Millions of French people consume cannabis on a regular or occasional basis. But not with the same consequences. Some will smoke every day without developing an addiction, but others – a third of regular users – will become addicted. With the risk of suffering from associated disorders: anxiety, depression, professional and personal failures, accidents, cancer, schizophrenia… Why? Genes increase the risk of developing a cannabis addiction. Daniel Levey and his colleagues, from Yale University in New Haven, have just identified them.
More than 10% of French people aged 18 to 64 used cannabis recreationally last year, and its main psychoactive substance, THC, is expected to become legal in France in 2024 for medical use, including the treatment of chronic pain and cancer. This is already the case in forty-eight countries around the world. But is the risk inherent in this consumption the same for everyone? It may partly depend on our genes. Drug use and the addiction that sometimes results from it are influenced by both genes and the environment, making it difficult to disentangle these two influences. But in this study, researchers were able to have the genome and biological data of more than a million people, notably from the Million Veteran Program, an American genetic data bank used to improve health care provided to former military personnel. Several ethnic groups were also represented in this sample, which is a first for a genetic study on cannabis abuse; vulnerability genes were found in all populations.
Furthermore, researchers discovered that certain portions of DNA associated with the risk of cannabis addiction were already linked to other health problems, such as lung cancer and schizophrenia. However, with regard to this psychiatric illness, cannabis consumption is the most preventable risk factor. The discovery of these genes in common thus reinforces the idea that cannabis dependence and psychosis influence each other. At a time when we have more and more access to cannabis for pleasure, and when this substance will be added to the arsenal of treatments, we will have to take into account the fact that we are not all equal when it comes to to the risks associated with its consumption.
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