CANNABIS TIMEBOMB
Drug ‘responsible for 60,000 cases of depression’ Teenage users three times more not likely to attempt suicide
Smoking cannabis as a teenager can have a ‘devastating’ impact on mental health later in life, a landmark study has found.
oxford University psychiatrists say using the drug before the age of 18 increases the risk of depression in young adulthood by more than a third. it also significantly raises the risk of someone attempting suicide.
The researchers said they believed cannabis was responsible for 60,000 cases of depression among the young in Britain today. They warned that while teenagers and some parents saw cannabis as a harmless ‘herbal’ or ‘natural’ drug, it actually interfered with the brain at a crucial period in its development.
The psychiatrists – whose study is the biggest ever conducted into the widely established link between cannabis and mental health – said the growing strength of new strains of cannabis was compounding this risk.
These types – such as the ‘skunk’ cannabis now widely available – are up to ten times as strong as drugs sold in the 1980s and 1990s.
Drugs campaigners said the research should finally end any talk about legalising cannabis. Voices for decriminalisation of the drug have been growing in recent months, bouyed by the government’s decision to permit limited use for medical treatment.
The study, led by experts from oxford and mcgill University in Canada, found people who smoked cannabis of any type before the age of 18 were at a 37 per cent increased risk of developing depression by the age of 32.
They were also three times more likely to attempt suicide.
Report author Professor Andrea Cipriani said some parents had a relaxed attitude to the drug, but the evidence was clear.
‘This is important information for parents and teenagers. The risk is modest, but it can have a devastating impact.’
Professor Cipriani, of oxford, added: ‘We looked at the effects of cannabis because its use among young people is so common, but the long-term effects are still poorly understood.
‘The widespread use of cannabis among the young generations makes it an important public health issue.’
He said cannabis was the world’s most widely used illicit drug – and one in 25 children in Britain were using it monthly by the age of 15. This can play havoc with the key parts of the brain while it is still developing, he added.
‘it is a vulnerable period of development. For teenagers there may be an effect which is biological, with some consequences which can be devastating.’
Professor Cipriani said cannabis had a particularly powerful effect on the pre-frontal cortex, which controls rational thinking, and the limbic system, which controls emotion.
The study did not track how frequently people used cannabis in their teens – merely including those who had used it at least once before the age of 18. But Professor Cipriani added: ‘ Cannabis has a long half-life. it can last a week or more in the body.’ This suggests that even teenagers who infrequently use the drug could be doing lasting damage.
Previous research has shown cannabis can trigger psychosis, but scientists have been divided about whether it increases the risk of depression, which affects many thousands more people.
Professor Cipriani said: ‘Regular use during adolescence is associated with lower achievement at school, addiction, psychosis and neuropsychological decline, increased risk of motor vehicle crashes, as well as the respiratory problems that are associated with smoking.’ The researchers pooled the results of 11 of the best cannabis studies over the past 25 years, involving a total of 23,000 people.
Anyone who had previously suffered from mental illness was excluded from the study, along with anyone with a family history of depression, so the researchers could narrow down the impact as far as possible to cannabis alone.
The academics, whose findings are published in the JAmA Psychiatry journal, calculated 7 per cent of cases of adult depression would not occur if teenagers stopped smoking cannabis.
They said this meant roughly 60,000 cases of depression among British people in their teens, 20s and early 30s could be attributed to using cannabis during adolescence.
Professor gabriella gobbi, of mcgill, said: ‘A lot of adolescents – 80 or 90 per cent – think that cannabis is a herbal product so it’s safe, but it is not true.
‘Just because it came from plants does not mean it is without harm.
‘it is not as in the 1980s and 1990s, when THC [the active ingredient of cannabis] was about 3 per cent in joints. now we have joints of 10, 20, 30 even more per cent and adolescents must be aware of this.’
The researchers would not get drawn into the legalisation debate, but they stressed that any policy change should focus on reducing cannabis use among the young.
David Raynes, of the national Drug Prevention Alliance, said: ‘The government would be very unwise to change the law. This is another piece of evidence of the impact of cannabis.’
Theresa may and the government are opposed to legalisation.
‘It can have a devastating impact’
IN liberal circles, it is fashionable to advocate legalising cannabis, expressing the old canard that the drug is less harmful than alcohol.
In recent months, supposedly enlightened notables have called for debate on the thorny issue. Do they comprehend what dangerous – and ill-informed – poppycock they spout? Perhaps they should read today’s Oxford University study which lays bare the terrifying truth about cannabis.
It makes chilling reading. About 60,000 young Britons suffer from depression caused by taking the pernicious Class B narcotic as teenagers.
Lured by woolly-minded ideology that says cannabis is a harmless ‘natural’ drug, they unwittingly interfered with their brains at a critical time in their development – storing up serious mental illness.
In what dystopian universe should such a destructive substance, which damages families and communities, be legal?
Even though cannabis is banned, its pungent stench permeates our streets. Smokers stick two fingers up at the law, using the drug openly in the knowledge that police have effectively decriminalised it. Yet it is inextricably linked to gangs who bring bloodshed to our towns and cities.
It is time ministers treated cannabis as a dire public health emergency. Thirty years ago, campaigns warning about Aids, heroin and drink-driving reduced those problems by shocking the nation out of its stupor.
Today, on TV and social media, the hardhitting message should be that cannabis is a gateway to ruin.