Pot and gaming combo could pose hidden health risks, researchers warn

Smoking marijuana and playing some video games may seem like a chill night for some — but both hobbies have been linked with psychosis in a variety of studies.

As the Trump administration considers reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug, touting the medicinal benefits of CBD, the question looms of how pot and gaming could impact the mental health of Americans.

A June 2023 study, published in the journal Psychopathology, examined the link between gaming disorder (an addictive behavioral disorder) and psychotic disorders.

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Excessive gaming may act as a trigger for psychotic episodes in some patients, according to multiple case reports. The sudden disruption of gaming habits could also trigger psychosis.

The researchers noted that there is a significant lack of research on how these two disorders interact.

A similar study from 2023, published in BMC Psychiatry, found that insomnia and cyberbullying are key mechanisms in this link between gaming and psychotic disorders.

The researchers concluded that prevention of sleep deprivation and cyberbullying can reduce the risk.

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Another study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2024, concluded that adolescents and young adults engage in “problematic gaming” much faster than adults.

Adolescents and young adults also shared similar psychiatric comorbidities, including autism, ADHD and problematic gambling.

More recent research has highlighted an increased risk of psychosis in certain marijuana users.

A study published in JAMA Psychiatry in April found that cannabis use disorder is associated with heightened dopamine activity in the same brain pathway involved in psychosis, which could explain why cannabis increases the risk of psychosis.

Another study from September 2025 compared psychotic symptoms, dissociation and alexithymia (difficulty identifying and expressing emotions) among non-cannabis users, natural cannabis users and synthetic cannabinoid users.

The results, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, found that synthetic users had more severe psychotic symptoms, high dissociative symptoms with little improvement over time, and limited recovery from alexithymia.

Natural cannabis users showed elevated dissociation with some improvement. The non-users had higher negative symptoms at the start, but these improved progressively over a six-month period.

The researchers concluded that synthetic cannabinoids are associated with “more severe and persistent psychotic symptoms and emotional dysregulation compared to natural cannabis.”

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“These findings underscore the need for targeted interventions addressing emotional regulation and salience processing in cannabis-related psychosis,” the authors wrote.

Both gaming and cannabis use have a more severe impact on the psychosis of younger individuals, research has shown.

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For example, a 2022 NIH-published study found that general substance use in kids under 17 years of age posed a greater risk of psychotic-like experiences.

“Developing early detection and intervention for both substance use and psychotic-like experiences may reduce long-term adverse outcomes,” the researchers concluded.