"Research does indicate that some schizophrenics decline faster if they smoke hash." (Image by Zantastik.)

From “Running the Asylum,” Graeme Wood’s new Atlantic article about mental-health care in Pakistan, a land that’s suffered a dizzying succession of jihads, terrorism, floods and hashish, always hashish:

“Raja, in his early 30s, is a typical case. He has been out of his mind and addicted to hash for most of his adult life. He’s tall and skinny, with a film of dirt on his face that suggests he can’t quite look after himself. Wazir says Raja routinely relapses by leaving the hospital and hanging out at a nearby shrine close to a police station, where addicts gather to smoke hash and opium. (Wazir blames the hash for worsening Raja’s mental problems. Research does indicate that some schizophrenics decline faster if they smoke hash. Other research, however, shows that cannabidiol, one of the psychoactive chemicals in hashish, has antipsychotic properties. Perhaps it’s a wash.)

Today is a good day for Raja. His eyes bug out, and his lips are pulled back in a huge grin that reveals teeth the color of brown sugar, looking so rotten that a swig of water might wash them away entirely. On bad days, he flies into uncontrollable schizophrenic rages. ‘If he is violent or too talkative or too mischievous,’ Wazir says, ‘we put him again in the mental hospital, and if he requires it, he gets electric shocks.’ He has gone through about 15 rounds of shock therapy. ‘But he’s young, so he can sustain it.’

Wazir says his countrymen have been mentally traumatized more or less continuously for the past 35 years. ‘First it was Afghan jihad, then it was Kashmiri jihad, then it was the nuclear issue, then it was terrorism and suicide bombings, and now floods,’ he says. ‘I have not heard any good news coming to me in Pakistan’”