Don’t be duped: cannabis is harmful
WHETHER it’s schizophrenia, anxiety or depression, serious mental health problems as a result of cannabis use are well-established.
But many of us working in mental health and drug addiction — and who have experience of the criminal justice system as a result — have long worried about other effects we’ve observed in patients.
Now a new study at the University of Montreal has identified the damage cannabis can inflict on teenage brains.
The drug appears to have a direct affect on the pre-frontal cortex, shrinking a part of the brain involved in memory, mental processing, decisionmaking and, crucially, empathy.
This can have a devastating effect, profoundly limiting an individual’s ability to engage with the emotional response of others. Some scientists have drawn comparisons between the brains of cannabis users and ‘autistic’ brains in this respect.
Such research is routinely dismissed by the pro-cannabis lobby, which seeks legalisation of the drug. Cannabis is a drug that leaves users amiable and chilled out, they counter.
But just as alcohol relaxes some people and makes others aggressive, the same is true with cannabis. The evidence is out there. Cannabis campaigners can’t ignore it for ever.