Citation

Favrat B, Ménétrey A, Augsburger M, Rothuizen LE, Appenzeller M, Buclin T, Pin M, Mangin P, Giroud C. BMC Psychiatry 2005; 5: 17.

Affiliation

Unité de Médecine du Trafic, Institut Universitaire de Médecine Légale, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland. bernard.favrat@hospvd.ch

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/1471-244X-5-17

PMID

15804348

PMCID

PMC1079888

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cannabis is the most commonly used illegal drug and its therapeutic aspects have a growing interest. Short-term psychotic reactions have been described but not clearly with synthetic oral THC, especially in occasional users. CASE PRESENTATIONS: We report two cases of healthy subjects who were occasional but regular cannabis users without psychiatric history who developed transient psychotic symptoms (depersonalization, paranoid feelings and derealisation) following oral administration of cannabis. In contrast to most other case reports where circumstances and blood concentrations are unknown, the two cases reported here happened under experimental conditions with all subjects negative for cannabis, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, benzodiazepines and alcohol, and therefore the ingested dose, the time-events of effects on behavior and performance as well as the cannabinoid blood levels were documented. CONCLUSION: While the oral route of administration achieves only limited blood concentrations, significant psychotic reactions may occur.

Language: en