Parents need to wise up to the danger of skunk

The warnings by psychiatrist Professor Sir Robin Murray about the dangers to mental health posed by super-strength skunk, which you reported in The Mail on Sunday last week, are very timely and badly needed.

Many parents – members of our prevention charity, Cannabis Skunk Sense – have seen severe mental illnesses in their offspring.

But psychiatric problems are not the only disasters that can befall pot-users. Another grave consideration for parents is the decline in academic performance. Grades fall, IQ scores decline, and some youngsters drop out of education altogether.

Like cigarette smoke, cannabis smoke can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes. One in ten users becomes addicted, and for those who start using cannabis in their teens, that rises to one in six.

A recent paper reported that an astounding 43 per cent of skunkusers will become dependent, and rehab experts have told us that cannabis addiction in adolescents is the most difficult to treat.

Mary Brett, chairman, Cannabis Skunk Sense Your article ‘Superskunk schizophrenia timebomb’ troubled me greatly. It’s clear that more attention, effort and funding should be given to public education on the different types of street cannabis and their potential hazards. Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on ‘space cakes’ is bad for you.

It’s highly addictive – legalising it won’t stop the drug gangs, and it leads to harder substances.

In the past few years we have had three suicides in my area, and they were all drug-users. Jack Webb, Bodfari, North Wales This is one of the most important mental health issues today and one that merits the type of tough legislation that prohibits tobacco-smokers from lighting up in indoor public spaces. Chaka Artwell, Oxford After watching an episode of the excellent fly-on-the-wall documentary series 24 Hours In Police Custody – in which a criminal had drunk alcohol, smoked marijuana and taken cocaine, and then run over an innocent man on the pavement – I saw a news item about the terrorist attack at a supermarket in France.

Yet again, the perpetrator was either a taker or a dealer of drugs.

Drugs are front and centre in a massive amount of crime, both here and abroad. Yet I feel our politicians do not care or display logic and intelligence in addressing this issue.

So many want drugs legalised or sanctioned and our police are going soft on possession. It’s a national scandal. Peter Bryant, Ramsgate, Kent Legalisation of drugs would be a huge step into the unknown for society to take, and its effects could be irreversible and catastrophic. So let’s stay tough. David Courtney, Weston-super-Mare