A new study creates national fear in the UK about drug use and mental illness.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has issued a warning to Britain to stop going easy on marijuana users, following a new study which links skunk weed use to schizophrenia.
Executive director Antonio Costa suggests that kids caught in possession of cannabis should be penalized as harshly as if they were caught drinking and driving. The tolerant laissez-faire attitude of baby boomer parents is misguided, Costa warns, as the weed kids are smoking today is far more dangerous than the stuff the previous generation inhaled in their university days.
Genetically-engineered skunk weed, considered to be ten times stronger than resin or grass, has totally changed the rules of the game, according to the study. Doctors are warning that skunk cannabis is creating a generation with mental health problems.
The study, conducted by Bristol University researchers and published in the Addiction journal and in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs finds that a record 22 000 people needed health care for drug rehabilitation in Britain last year. Doctors are saying that because skunk weed is addictive, detox clinics are needed. A report published in the medical journal The Lancet claims cannabis does more harm than LSD and ecstasy, but less than alcohol and tobacco.
According to the study, since 2001, the number of people seeking emergency treatment due to cannabis has almost doubled, from 581 to almost 1,000 last year. Following the authors’ argument and the link made between skunk weed and schizophrenia, as cannabis use rises among males aged 18 to 30, so will cases of schizophrenia. Researchers predict cannabis may cause 25% of all new cases of schizophrenia in three years.
Aside from this severe mental illness, symptoms attributed to cannabis use include loss of concentration, paranoia, aggression and psychosis. Skunk weed’s strength makes it addictive and causes withdrawal symptoms of anxiety, sleep disturbance and tremors.
The UN warning has prompted the British newspaper, the Independent on Sunday, to reverse its ten-year pro-legalization stance and sparked furor and debate among pro-cannabis campaigners all over the web. People are questioning the evidence, claiming the comparisons between types and strengths of weed are exaggerated and suggesting that while a connection can be made between psychosis and cannabis use, one is not the cause of the other. A more likely story, they suggest, is that people in early stages of mental illness often self-medicate with marijuana.
This article was published Thursday, March 29, 2007.
