With the advent of the newer atypical antipsychotics, the dopamine theory behind schizophrenia is being challenged, because the older drugs, the “typical” antipsychotics tended to reduce dopamine in abundance and in turn controlled the patient’s schizophrenic positive symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations. The dopamine theory of schizophrenia is actually based on the clinical awareness of the effects of cocaine and other stimulants on the brain. In the act of abusing cocaine, the user will experience a rush of dopamine that feels like he or she had just been awarded something for essentially nothing. Dopamine is a natural chemical in our minds that is produced when we are going to be naturally awarded something, or completed a task, or just are plain having fun. The overdose on cocaine is often misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic occurrence, when in part what is actually happening is only half of the picture. We are finding now that structural abnormalities in the brains of the psychotic individuals play a large role, the severe loss of grey matter over time, the enlarged cerebral ventricles, the language dominant hemisphere are even in some schizophrenics disorganized, so that the individual may suffer from voices due to abnormalities in the broca area of the brain. The newer antipsychotics, the “atypicals,” which arose in the mid-seventies with clozapine, which is unsafe to some people because it lowers the white blood cell count. Also, some of the newer drugs, like Olaynzapine, or Zyprexa actually increase the changes of extreme weight gain and diabetes. However, these drugs do not target specifically the dopamine neurology of the brain, but also the serotonin and norepinephrine components, which do seem to have a more positive benefit of relieving negative symptoms. This is all great that the medical field is recognizing that the negative symptoms of schizophrenia: the lack of motivation, the flattened effect, the blunted language, the cognitive disorders, the mask-like face, and the autistic tendencies—remain as the most troublesome for patients to find success in life, even after the positive hallucinations, and even the paranoia is gone.
However, due to the medications side effects, schizophrenic patients often times turn to cannabis and other illicit drug use to calm down both their positive symptoms (and in some cases to exacerbate them because they tend to give some people pleasure), and spark inspiration through chemicals so that they can function in somewhat normalcy, and at least aren’t as lonely caught up in their despair, instead they are high on marijuana. There have been tests to confirm that smoking cannabis actually may trigger psychosis, but as I see it, if there is a psychotic individual who can’t find any relief from their medications, and decides to smoke pot, so be it. But, pot is only one drug, because to get the rush of feeling manic, people with schizoaffective disorders and bi polar disorders, who are treated with the same medication as the schizophrenic in many cases, often times turn to stimulants, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and designer drugs such as bath salts.
There are many reasons why a person would want to take drugs, but having a mental illness only makes these reasons more prominent and pin pointing the causes of drug use in the mentally ill, which is widely known and exemplified by case studies, and may help us find out the realities of all drug abuse in the general population.
Whatever the case may be, the statistics that 60 percent of schizophrenics will have a lifelong drug history, should not be discouraging, but an invitation to find out “why” this is. If there was a way that science would develop a medication that allowed schizophrenics feel the full range of human emotion then the drug issues may dissipate, although not completely, I’m sure. It is proven that the mentally ill often times abuse drugs in greater amounts and quantities than the rest of society, but those statistics may always be modified. I can just imagine, having all the right medications that give zest to the lives of schizophrenics, and hopefully they won’t damage their minds even more (although the brain damage issue, especially from chemical use is a tentative subject for me, as I believe in neural plasticity—if one part of the brain becomes damaged, another part takes over—this is based off of personal experiences with drugs, and my ability to come back and be able to tell about it. Anyway, drug use is simply part of the disease; it is not a moral disfigurement or a weakness. If anything, schizophrenics have to be ten times as strong as the average person, because they are constantly dealing with erroneous perceptions, “voices,” hallucinations, delusions, and lack of motivation and inability to communicate effectively.
