The terrible truth about cannabis: Expert's devastating 20-year study finally demolishes claims that smoking pot is harmless
- One in six teenagers who regularly smoke the drug become dependent
- It doubles risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
- Heavy use in adolescence appears to impair intellectual development
- Driving after smoking cannabis doubles risk of having a car crash
- Study's author said: 'If cannabis is not addictive then neither is heroin'
A definitive 20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe.
Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found.
The
paper by Professor Wayne Hall, a drugs advisor to the World Health
Organisation, builds a compelling case against those who deny the
devastation cannabis wreaks on the brain. Professor Hall found:
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Lasting effects: One in six teenagers
who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it and cannabis users
do worse at school. Heavy use in adolescence appears to impair
intellectual development. (File image)
- One in six teenagers who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it,
- Cannabis doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia,
- Cannabis users do worse at school. Heavy use in adolescence appears to impair intellectual development
- One in ten adults who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it and those who use it are more likely to go on to use harder drugs,
- Driving after smoking cannabis doubles the risk of a car crash, a risk which increases substantially if the driver has also had a drink,
- Smoking it while pregnant reduces the baby’s birth weight.
Last
night Professor Hall, a professor of addiction policy at King’s College
London, dismissed the views of those who say that cannabis is harmless.
‘If cannabis is not addictive then neither is heroin or alcohol,’ he said.
‘It
is often harder to get people who are dependent on cannabis through
withdrawal than for heroin – we just don’t know how to do it.’
Those
who try to stop taking cannabis often suffer anxiety, insomnia,
appetite disturbance and depression, he found. Even after treatment,
less than half can stay off the drug for six months.
The paper states that teenagers and young adults are now as likely to take cannabis as they are to smoke cigarettes.
Addiction: Those who try to stop
taking cannabis often suffer anxiety, insomnia, appetite disturbance and
depression, the study found. (File image)
Professor
Hall writes that it is impossible to take a fatal overdose of cannabis,
making it less dangerous at first glance than heroin or cocaine. He
also states that taking the drug while pregnant can reduce the weight of
a baby, and long-term use raises the risk of cancer, bronchitis and
heart attack.
But his main finding is that regular use, especially among teenagers, leads to long-term mental health problems and addiction.
‘The
important point I am trying to make is that people can get into
difficulties with cannabis use, particularly if they get into daily use
over a longer period,’ he said. ‘There is no doubt that heavy users
experience a withdrawal syndrome as with alcohol and heroin.
‘Rates of recovery from cannabis dependence among those seeking treatment are similar to those for alcohol.’
Mark
Winstanley, of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, said: ‘Too often
cannabis is wrongly seen as a safe drug, but as this review shows, there
is a clear link with psychosis and schizophrenia, especially for
teenagers.
‘The
common view that smoking cannabis is nothing to get worked up about
needs to be challenged more effectively. Instead of classifying and
re-classifying, government time and money would be much better spent on
educating young people about how smoking cannabis is essentially playing
a very real game of Russian roulette with your mental health.’
Cannabis
was given a Class B rating when the classification system for illegal
drugs was set up in 1971, putting it below Class A substances heroin and
cocaine in seriousness but above Class C drugs such as steroids.
The
Labour government downgraded the drug to Class C in 2004 – meaning
officers did not normally arrest those caught with it – but reversed its
decision within five years. Other failed attempts to liberalise the
approach to cannabis include that of former Metropolitan Police chief
Brian Paddick, who spearheaded a ‘softly, softly’ scheme while borough
commander in Lambeth in 2001.
His
party leader, Nick Clegg, has previously backed moves to partially
decriminalise the sale of cannabis. At the Liberal Democrat conference
yesterday, he called for people to be spared jail if they are caught
with small amounts of drugs.
Widespread: Teenagers and young adults
are now as likely to take cannabis as they are to smoke cigarettes.
Regular use, especially among teens, leads to long-term mental health
problems and addiction. (File image)
In
2005, David Cameron, when he ran for the Tory leadership, said it would
be ‘disappointing’ if radical options on the law on cannabis were not
looked at. He said he favoured ‘fresh thinking and a new approach’
towards drugs policy.
Mr
Cameron also voted, when he was a member of the Home Affairs Select
Committee, for the UN body on drugs policy to look at whether to
legalise and regulate the drugs trade. Today, he no longer supports
decriminalisation.
Professor Hall last night declined to comment on the decriminalisation debate.
But
in his paper, published in the journal Addiction, he wrote that the
rise of medical treatment for cannabis ‘dependence syndrome’ had not
been stopped by legalisation. The number of cannabis users seeking help
to quit or control their cannabis use has increased during the past two
decades in the United States, Europe and Australia,’ he wrote. ‘The same
increase has occurred in the Netherlands, where cannabis use was
decriminalised more than 40 years ago.’
David
Raynes, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, added: ‘There is no
case for legalisation and we hope that this puts an end to the matter.
The two main parties agree that cannabis needs to remain illegal – we
hope the Liberal Democrats see this research and re-examine their
policies.’
The celebrities and campaigners who claimed cannabis was safe
For
years, activists and celebrities trying to decriminalise cannabis have
campaigned on the claim that the real health damage to users is done by
the legal ban on drugs. They have dismissed the growing evidence that
smoking cannabis is a serious risk to mental health.
Prominent
supporters of decriminalisation have included comedian Russell Brand,
singer Sting, writer Will Self and left-wing barrister Michael
Mansfield.
A
key figure has been David Nutt, who was chairman of the Home Office
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, until sacked for his
campaigning five years ago. The professor said the risk of lung cancer
from smoking was vastly greater than the risk of psychosis from
cannabis.
Personal:
Sir Richard Branson (left) has a long-running campaign against the legal
ban on drugs and comedian Russell Brand, pictured right last night, has
been a prominent supporter of decriminalisation
He
gave a lecture in 2009 in which he said: ‘The analysis we came up with
was that smokers of cannabis are about 2.6 times more likely to have a
psychotic-like experience than non-smokers. To put that figure in
proportion, you are 20 times more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke
tobacco than if you don’t.
‘The
other paradox is that schizophrenia seems to be disappearing from the
general population, even though cannabis use has increased markedly in
the last 30 years.
‘So,
even though skunk has been around now for ten years, there has been no
upswing in schizophrenia. Where people have looked, they haven’t found
any evidence linking cannabis use in a population and schizophrenia.’
The
claim that cannabis is harmless is repeated in a documentary shortly to
be released in Britain called The Culture High, which features
interviews with Sir Richard Branson and Mike Trace, Britain’s deputy
drugs czar under Tony Blair. He was sacked after the Mail revealed he
was planning to launch a decriminalisation pressure group.
The
film contains an interview with an academic who states that ‘marijuana
is the most non-toxic medicine I have ever come across’ and maintains,
according to reports, that ‘scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows it
has medical benefits’.
Sir
Richard’s appearance in the film is part of a long-running personal
campaign against the legal ban on drugs. Sir Richard is also part of the
Global Commission on Drug Policy, a pressure group which says
legalisation would ‘safeguard the health and security of citizens’.
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