Cannabis-induced psychosis drives Thai man to cut off his own penis

Doctors were unable to reconstruct the man’s penis as it was infested with ants

A 23-year-old Thai man who got into a cannabis-induced psychosis “completely amputated” his own penis using scissors, doctors said.

The man inflicted life-altering injury upon himself after he smoked 2g of marijuana, which is equivalent to six joints, in two bongs.

Two hours after smoking up, the man had a painful erection with "severe persistent sharp pain" in his penis.

The man had an erection without sexual stimulation and developed paranoia when his glans started to look distorted.

To get rid of the severe pain, the man then decided to cut off his penile skin several times before amputating it completely with a pair of scissors.

The man was taken to hospital after the bleeding did not stop for two hours where the doctors said the injury left him with a remaining penile stump of 2cm in length, without the skin and a 5cm laceration in his scrotum.

The incident was revealed in a medical case report by the doctors who treated him in Thailand’s Chiang Mai University in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.

According to doctors, the man had been using cannabis frequently for two years and quit using it for three months before he amputated his genitals.

The doctors at the hospital tried to reconstruct the penis but it was deemed to be “dirty and fragile” after it was contaminated with ants.

The harrowing case study was revealed as Thailand became the first Asian country last week to decriminalise recreational cannabis for personal use. This will allow Thai people to grow cannabis plants at home for personal use after notifying their local government.

The study concluded that cannabis can increase the risk of psychosis, loss of insight, and thought disorder which can lead to unexpected behaviour, including in patients with no previous psychiatric disorders.

The doctors said self-amputations of the penis due to cannabis-induced psychosis “is a devastating event” that can interfere with “the quality of life, such as urination dysfunction or sexual function”.

The urine test taken from the man was positive for THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis responsible for giving people the sensation of feeling high.

The man remained at the hospital for two weeks and was found to be suffering from both visual and auditory hallucinations which later subsided.

The study said there have been around 100 cases of male genital self-mutilation driven by substance-induced psychosis over the past two decades. However, they noted that penis amputation during cannabis-induced psychosis “has rarely been reported”.