An Ontario Teen’s Cannabis-Induced Psychosis Led to Suicide—Mother Raises Alarm

Mila Neufeld of Westport, Ont., was 17 when she became hooked on cannabis vaping pens. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

The risk of psychosis for teens using cannabis has become increasingly clear to researchers in Canada and abroad in recent years—and it’s tragically clear to Troy and Tara Neufeld of Westport, Ontario.

Their daughter, Mila, died by suicide in 2021 at the age of 18. What drove her to that point became evident little by little in the following weeks as the Neufelds spoke to Mila’s friends and read through her diary.

“She was talking about ants crawling on her hair,” Tara Neufeld told The Epoch Times, recalling one of her daughter’s last journal entries and her descent into psychosis. “She called one of her friends in absolute abject terror because she said she was hiding in the closet and there were little girls outside with knives that were trying to get into the closet.”

An Ontario-focused study published in the journal Psychological Medicine in May is part of a growing body of evidence showing a link between cannabis and psychosis, especially for teens. High-potency products such as vaping pens are of particular concern.

Neufeld hopes people will become more aware of the risks so other young people, and their families, won’t suffer like her family has.

Since recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada in 2018, some studies have shown young people increasingly see it as harmless. For Canadians aged 15–17, cannabis use has become “a normalized behaviour since legalization” and is seen as “harmless and enjoyable,” according to a 2022 Health Canada-commissioned report on youth perspectives.

‘Not Just a Plant Anymore’

The study published in Psychological Medicine noted the average tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) potency of illicit herbal cannabis in Canada has increased from roughly 1 percent in 1980 to 20 percent in 2018.

Vaping pens sold by government-approved retailers in Ontario often have a concentration of 80–100 percent THC.

Mila’s diary detailed her first use of a cannabis vaping pen several months before her death. She rapidly became dependent on vape pens and struggled to control her use.

“It’s a laboratory product,” Neufeld said. “This is literally a pharmaceutical. It’s not just a plant anymore. It’s kind of like saying Aspirin is white willow bark.” She also compared it to a bottle of vodka versus moonshine. “You can’t go to the LCBO and buy moonshine for a reason, right?”

The use of cannabis vaping products are on the rise, with a 59 percent increase in sales in the 2022–23 fiscal year, according to Statistics Canada.

The Schizophrenia Society of Canada is currently spearheading a project called “Cannabis and Psychosis: Exploring the Link.” The federal health minister’s legislative review of cannabis legalization, published in March, also expressed concerns about psychosis risk. The review recommended reinstating health warnings about psychosis and schizophrenia on cannabis products, among other measures to protect users, especially youth.

The review said one of the “well known” risks of frequently using high-potency products is that there is substantial evidence of such use being associated with the development of schizophrenia or psychosis.

This may be well known to science, but it wasn’t well known to Neufeld, nor apparently to the adults—including a school counsellor—Mila reached out to for help. It wasn’t well known to Mila or her friends, who might otherwise have understood what was happening.

Tara Neufeld (L) with her daughter, Mila, at one of Mila's hockey games. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

Mila, in her younger years, poses with her father, Troy Neufeld. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

Mila milks a cow on her family's farm in Westport, Ontario. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

Mila Neufeld sets off on a canoe trip with her father, Troy Neufeld. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

Hooked on THC Vapes

Mila was the youngest of Neufeld’s three daughters, and the one Neufeld never worried about. “She was just so solid—incredibly solid, incredibly grounded,” Neufeld said.

Mila was a star athlete, honour roll kind of kid. The Neufeld family lives on a farm and Mila often spent time helping her father with work on the farm and caring for the animals.

She was a talented writer who was admitted to a creative arts program in high school. She wanted to be a writer and a midwife, among other aspirations.

She had great empathy, Neufeld said. She started playing hockey at a young age and would always stop to check that other kids were OK if they fell or got hurt on the ice.

“She was so tender and could never understand people being mean or cruel to someone,” she said.

When her friends started using THC vapes, she was initially irritated with them being high all the time, according to her diary. It was October 2020, when she was 17, that she wrote about her first time trying it herself.

Neufeld recalled the entry: “She said ‘I LOVE IT!!’ in big capital letters with exclamation marks. And then by December, just two months later, she’s writing about how she can’t sleep at night and she’s having to wake up and smoke these vaping pens.”

The pens have no odour, and Neufeld didn’t realize what was happening. “She was very, very good at hiding it,” she said.

“Both myself and my husband, we’re both very checked-in parents. We’re very close with our kids,” she said. Her husband, Troy, is a emergency-medicine physician.

They knew when their two older daughters had tried marijuana, and Neufeld said she thought it was a “pretty mild drug.” She wasn’t too concerned, though she didn’t condone it.

‘Odd Behaviour’

The perception that cannabis comes with mental health risks has decreased in Canada, according to a Statistics Canada study on non-medical use of cannabis in the country in 2023. Just under 70 percent of Canadians think daily or almost daily cannabis use increases the risk of mental health problems, a drop from 89 percent in 2019.

It can often make people feel tense, anxious, fearful, and confused, says the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Cannabis use is associated with suicidal ideation and attempts, especially in young people, says a 2023 literature review published in the peer-reviewed journal Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. The review did note that the relationship between cannabis use and suicidal behaviour is complex and that it’s difficult to establish a causal relationship.

Mila got caught skipping school in February 2021, which was out of character, and it spurred a talk with her parents during which she admitted to trying cannabis. They took some privileges away, including prohibiting her from driving the family’s truck for a while.

“Then the following week, she just said that she was moving out. And we were horrified. We didn’t understand what was happening,” Neufeld said. “It was such odd behaviour. ... It wasn’t like it was Mila.”

Neufeld had realized Mila was unusually grumpy and tired. She tried looking at nutritional supplements to help Mila with her sleep and mood. She spoke to Mila about what might be causing her stress and offered her help. “I thought, well, this is just sort of Grade 12.”

It was the middle of the pandemic, and Mila had a lot of difficulties related to that. Her sports activities were shut down. Her ability to socialize and go to school was limited. She wasn’t able to apply for the midwifery program she wanted because the university required proof of COVID vaccination and she had concerns about the vaccine. She gave up on her ambitions to go to university.

Mila Neufeld of Westport, Ont., passed away on May 10, 2021, at age 18. Courtesy of Tara Neufeld

‘Just a Matter of Months’

Mila moved in with a friend and that friend’s father. Her diary entries detail her deterioration from that point onward. Sometimes she would go days without sleep. She drank alcohol and vaped frequently. She thought ambulances were following her. She said she could see ghosts.

She visited her family on Mother’s Day, May 9, 2021. That was about seven months after her first time using a cannabis vaping pen.

“She had lost a lot of weight. You could just see she was dull, like dulled, you know? I was really worried about her,” Neufeld said. She gave Mila a hug as she left the next morning.

Mila went to buy cannabis products, then went to work. After work, she went to a nearby lake. She ingested edible cannabis products, vaped THC, and wrote letters to her family about the beautiful moments she had shared with them. Those were the final moments before her suicide.

Neufeld got a knock on her door from the police that night.

“You'd just rather die than live through that,” she said. She and her husband couldn’t reconcile what they were told with what they knew of their daughter.

“The story came in dribbles,” Neufeld said. One of Mila’s sisters was able to get into her email and see her communications there. Mila had reached out to a drug hotline in Ontario, and they sent her information about available programs via email as a follow-up.

The police released Mila’s car to the family after their investigation, and that’s where they found her diary. Mila’s friends provided some of the puzzle pieces. It all pointed to her cannabis use and developing psychosis, with no other drugs involved.

The coroner’s report contained an expert opinion on the involvement of cannabis products in Mila’s death. “On the balance of probability, frequent, heavy use of high potency THC cannabis played a contributing role to Mila’s death by precipitating and or potentiating deterioration of her mental health, perpetuating mental health symptoms and the final physical and mental effects at the time of death,” it said.

Neufeld hopes other parents and teens will realize the risks, particularly of high-potency products.

“With her unique biochemistry and using the products that she was—it was so fast and so hard for her, just a matter of months,” she said. “It’s shattered our family forever, and I'll miss her till the day I die.”