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Cannabis addiction soars as drug gets stronger
Daily Mail
March 18, 2007
Timebomb: Users risk their mental health
Record numbers of teenagers are having treatment for addiction to super-strength cannabis.
The number of under-18s treated for smoking skunk - a potent strain of the drug - has doubled in 12 months to nearly 10,000 last year, according to research.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago.
Experts warned that the emergence of skunk, the extra-strong variety of the drug which is 25 times stronger than cannabis resin, was a "mental health timebomb".
Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said: "The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using cannabis eight to ten years ago. But the people starting now are starting on skunk.
"The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising but what people are taking is much more powerful.
"The question is: Will we see more people getting ill as a consequence? We'll just have to wait and see."
Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis.
Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous - than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstasy.
The findings will increase the pressure on Labour to rethink its policy on cannabis, which it downgraded from a Class B to a Class C drug three years ago. The move was fiercely criticised by police and mental health groups, who claim it caused a surge in cannabis abuse among youngsters.
Concern about skunk has also grown following a spate of murders and brutal assaults where cannabis psychosis has been cited as a factor.
Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, said: "Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. I think we are faced with a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use."
According to statistics provided by the Health Service, around 22,000 cannabis smokers are currently undergoing drug treatment for their addiction.
Nearly half of them - 9,600 - are under 18.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago, when just 1,660 users were treated by the NHS.
The numbers attending hospital with cannabis-related mental and behavioural disorders have also risen sharply - from 581 five years ago to almost 1,000 last year.
Experts say the skunk smoked by youngsters today is very different to the cannabis resin of ten years ago.
It has 25 times the level of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol, and is sold at a third of the price.
Smoking cannabis is known to increase the levels of a brain chemical called dopamine and it is thought an excess can produce the hallucinations characteristic of schizophrenia.
Since the reclassification, police have also reported a boom in domestic cannabis farms.
Around 60 per cent of the drug used in Britain is now being grown here, compared with just 11 per cent ten years ago.
In the face of such damning evidence, the Independent on Sunday - which campaigned vociferously for the decriminalisation of the drug under the editorship of Rosie Boycott - performed a spectacular U-turn.
The newspaper published an apology and claimed the campaign, which culminated in a protest march through London's Hyde Park, was flawed.
It said that since January 2004, when then home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C, serious concerns have arisen about its effects.
The paper's views have been echoed by police, scientists and mental health professionals.
Superintendent Leroy Logan, who is in charge of policing in the North Hackney district of London, said last month that Labour's decision to relax cannabis laws had led to "extensive and expansive" use among youngsters and had triggered a "paranoid mistrust" of the police and anyone in authority.
Link
Daily Mail
March 18, 2007
Timebomb: Users risk their mental health
Record numbers of teenagers are having treatment for addiction to super-strength cannabis.
The number of under-18s treated for smoking skunk - a potent strain of the drug - has doubled in 12 months to nearly 10,000 last year, according to research.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago.
Experts warned that the emergence of skunk, the extra-strong variety of the drug which is 25 times stronger than cannabis resin, was a "mental health timebomb".
Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said: "The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using cannabis eight to ten years ago. But the people starting now are starting on skunk.
"The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising but what people are taking is much more powerful.
"The question is: Will we see more people getting ill as a consequence? We'll just have to wait and see."
Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis.
Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous - than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstasy.
The findings will increase the pressure on Labour to rethink its policy on cannabis, which it downgraded from a Class B to a Class C drug three years ago. The move was fiercely criticised by police and mental health groups, who claim it caused a surge in cannabis abuse among youngsters.
Concern about skunk has also grown following a spate of murders and brutal assaults where cannabis psychosis has been cited as a factor.
Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, said: "Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. I think we are faced with a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use."
According to statistics provided by the Health Service, around 22,000 cannabis smokers are currently undergoing drug treatment for their addiction.
Nearly half of them - 9,600 - are under 18.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago, when just 1,660 users were treated by the NHS.
The numbers attending hospital with cannabis-related mental and behavioural disorders have also risen sharply - from 581 five years ago to almost 1,000 last year.
Experts say the skunk smoked by youngsters today is very different to the cannabis resin of ten years ago.
It has 25 times the level of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol, and is sold at a third of the price.
Smoking cannabis is known to increase the levels of a brain chemical called dopamine and it is thought an excess can produce the hallucinations characteristic of schizophrenia.
Since the reclassification, police have also reported a boom in domestic cannabis farms.
Around 60 per cent of the drug used in Britain is now being grown here, compared with just 11 per cent ten years ago.
In the face of such damning evidence, the Independent on Sunday - which campaigned vociferously for the decriminalisation of the drug under the editorship of Rosie Boycott - performed a spectacular U-turn.
The newspaper published an apology and claimed the campaign, which culminated in a protest march through London's Hyde Park, was flawed.
It said that since January 2004, when then home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C, serious concerns have arisen about its effects.
The paper's views have been echoed by police, scientists and mental health professionals.
Superintendent Leroy Logan, who is in charge of policing in the North Hackney district of London, said last month that Labour's decision to relax cannabis laws had led to "extensive and expansive" use among youngsters and had triggered a "paranoid mistrust" of the police and anyone in authority.
Link
) and make bank instead of spending so much money trying to fight it. 
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
