[mnowicki]

I have literally seen an article before that said prodromal(pre/early onset) schizophrenia leads to Marijuana use, and I remember wondering at the time how they knew which way the causation went.

I'm also not sure if it's journalists wanting to push one narrative over the other, or just a lack of understanding.

[wutbrodo]

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was both. What's dishonest/incompetent is the framing of changes like the statistic as if the causal direction is clear, without addressing the (to my mind more plausible) opposite causal direction.

Cigarette smoking also has a heavy association with schizophrenia, but the biases we have about it don't lend themselves to the kind of sloppy causality that you see with marijuana. I know you can legitimize biases by calling them priors, but then you need to show your work: those priors themselves should be based in harder data and explicitly referenced.

Otherwise, sloppy science (and reporting) become indistinguishable from considered priors.