Cannabis Psychosis Causes Man To Believe He’s Haunted By Ghost: Dies Trying To Escape

A young Russian tourist’s terrifying final hours — convinced a ghost with bulging eyes was hunting him through a Thai condominium — ended with a fatal nine-story plunge that revealed the dark truth about what today’s super-potent marijuana can do to the human mind.

In the darkness before dawn on May 22nd, a 27-year-old Russian tourist named Mikhail plunged nine stories to his death from a Pattaya condominium. What made his death especially disturbing was what happened in the hours before his fall. According to witnesses, Mikhail had been smoking marijuana heavily when he became convinced that a phantom with “bulging eyes” was hunting him down, trying to murder him. In his terror, he ran frantically through the building before making the fatal leap that ended his life.

This tragic incident is far from an isolated case. Across the world, similar stories emerge with frightening regularity — young people suffering terrifying hallucinations and delusions after using cannabis, sometimes leading to devastating consequences including suicide attempts and deaths.

When Reality Becomes a Nightmare

Cannabis-induced psychosis is characterized by a break with reality, including paranoid delusions, suspiciousness, and a sense of grandiosity. Unlike the mild paranoia some people might experience while high, this condition is far more severe and dangerous. Symptoms include hallucinations, dissociation or a feeling of detachment and unreality, disorganized and disturbed thoughts, inappropriate emotional responses, and unusual changes in behavior.

To hallucinate is to hear, see, feel, or in other ways sense something that isn’t real. To be delusional means to have persistent false beliefs, even when there is evidence to contradict those beliefs. In Mikhail’s case, he became convinced that a ghost with bulging eyes was chasing him — a terrifying delusion that felt completely real to him.

The Hidden Epidemic

While marijuana is often viewed as a relatively harmless drug, the reality is more complex and frightening. Research shows that 0.47% of people who use cannabis report lifetime occurrence of cannabis-associated psychotic symptoms requiring emergency medical treatment. This might seem like a small number, but when considering the millions of people who use cannabis worldwide, it represents thousands of individuals experiencing life-threatening episodes.

The problem has grown more serious as marijuana has become stronger. Marijuana in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s was about 2% to 3% THC, but nowadays, with commercialized products, they are routinely 20 plus percent — about 10 times more potent. Some products now contain as much as 99% THC, creating a substance that bears little resemblance to the marijuana of previous generations.

Young Men at Greatest Risk

The victims of cannabis-induced psychosis follow disturbing patterns. Young adults and teenagers, particularly men, are at increased risk of developing psychosis from marijuana use. Studies clearly indicate that the risk for psychosis is dose dependent, meaning that the more marijuana somebody’s exposed to especially in adolescence, the greater the risk of developing psychosis, schizophrenia and severe mental illness.

The tragic stories pile up. Johnny, age 19, died of suicide by jumping from a six-floor building after marijuana use, including vapes and highly concentrated “dabs,” made him “very paranoid and suspicious”. Daniel Juarez was an outstanding soccer player who got very high with a friend the night he stabbed himself 20 times. The suicide report showed he had 38.2 ng of marijuana in his blood, eight times the limit for Colorado drivers.

Hamza Warsame, a 16-year-old immigrant from Somalia, killed himself after using marijuana for the first time and had a psychotic reaction. He fell six floors to his death. What’s particularly chilling about Hamza’s case is that he died after using marijuana just once — demonstrating how even first-time use of today’s high-potency cannabis can trigger a fatal psychotic episode.

When the High Turns Deadly

The symptoms of cannabis-induced psychosis can be terrifyingly intense. Visual hallucinations are more common and more distinct in cannabis-induced psychosis than in other psychoses such as schizophrenia. People experiencing these episodes may see, hear, or feel things that aren’t there. They might believe they’re being followed, threatened, or hunted by imaginary enemies.

The mood symptom profile includes obsessive ideation, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and anxiety. Of significance is the presence of social phobia: 20% of patients with cannabis-induced psychosis demonstrate phobic anxiety compared with only 3.8% of patients with primary psychosis with cannabis abuse.

In some cases, the psychotic symptoms can last far longer than the drug’s immediate effects. Cannabis intoxication will necessarily resolve within 24 hours whereas cannabis-induced psychotic disorder can last for days and even weeks after cannabis exposure. While the majority of users returned back to normal within one day or less following the emergence of cannabis-associated psychotic symptoms, a subset individuals experienced prolonged psychotic symptoms (e.g., longer than 4 weeks: 21%).

The Science Behind the Terror

Marijuana overactivates molecules in our brain known as cannabinoid receptors, which cause the high. When these brain receptors are stimulated, it can cause difficulty with thinking and problem-solving, as well as impaired memory. Scientists believe it’s interfering with our brains ability to distinguish between what’s going on in our heads versus the real world.

The risk factors that make someone more vulnerable to cannabis-induced psychosis are still being studied, but some patterns have emerged. Higher rates were observed in young individuals and those using predominantly high-potency resin compared to people who use herbal cannabis, those mixing cannabis with tobacco compared to people who use cannabis not mixing with tobacco and those with a diagnosis of psychosis.

A Long-Term Threat

Perhaps most frightening of all is that cannabis-induced psychosis may not be a temporary problem. As many as half of people with cannabis-induced psychosis may go on to develop either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. If pot turns on that switch, it’s not something that can be easily turned off. Marijuana could effectively trigger a primary psychotic disorder, meaning that even once the substance is removed, the symptoms are still there.

Cannabis use was a relevant risk factor associated with both suicidal attempts and behaviors in psychotic and non-psychotic samples. This means that for some people, a decision to try marijuana — even just once — could trigger a cascade of mental health problems that persist long after the drug has left their system.

The Method of Desperation

When people in the grip of cannabis-induced psychosis attempt suicide, they often choose particularly lethal methods. Jumping from tall buildings or high bridges seems to be reserved for those who are determined to die. People who think about committing suicide fear that they’re going to hurt themselves but not kill themselves, and just make their situation worse, which may explain why those experiencing severe psychotic episodes choose such final methods.

The most common method found to be used by female methamphetamine users was jumping from high places, while the most common methods employed by male users were hanging and charcoal burning — and similar patterns appear in cannabis-related suicides. The presence of a psychotic illness in patients who jump is agreed on in all series that examine the phenomenon. Psychosis may be diagnosed either before or after the attempt, but is typically made in association with the presentation.

A Growing Crisis

Parents of Children With Cannabis-Induced Psychosis support group has more than 600 parents, underscoring the issue’s prevalence. These are families whose lives have been shattered by a drug that many still consider harmless.

The tragedy in Pattaya, where Mikhail fell to his death while fleeing from imaginary demons, represents just one story in what appears to be a growing crisis. As marijuana becomes more potent and more widely available, the number of people experiencing these terrifying episodes may continue to rise.

For those who survive cannabis-induced psychosis, the experience leaves lasting scars. Patients presenting after jumping from a height almost all require multidisciplinary management and survivors of falls from hazardous heights are often left with major injuries and permanent disabilities from the impact-related injuries.

The ghost with bulging eyes that Mikhail believed was hunting him existed only in his mind — a product of a drug that transformed his reality into a nightmare so terrifying that death seemed like the only escape.