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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Warnings go up in smoke
Dr Thomas Stuttaford The Times
Thursday 02 Jun 2005 The dangers of cannabis are still being ignored OVER THE PAST 30 or 40 years the various opinions that have been staunchly supported by the political hierarchy, and presumably the doctors who advise them, must have cost many tens of thousands of lives. Why, for instance, did we in the UK fail for so long to treat high-blood pressure as vigorously as other Western countries? Why were we so tardy in introducing breast screening? How was it that we allowed so many patients with haemophilia to have contaminated blood? Why did we fail to understand the dangers of hepatitis C or realise that it was a probability that BSE would spread to humans? The list is lengthy. One of the establishment's sins of omission that has always puzzled me, both as a doctor and as a former MP, is why the medical and political establishment refused for many years, and some still refuse, to accept that there is overwhelming evidence that cannabis smoking could cause symptoms of a psychotic nature during intoxication. Even now, they will not recognise that cannabis smoking increases the risk in genetically vulnerable people of developing schizophrenia, or one of its related psychoses. For more than 30 years there have been reputable research projects from all over the world that have showed that the likelihood of someone experiencing a psychotic breakdown is much greater if they are cannabis smokers. The extent of this effect is partly dependent on the dose taken, whether this is related to smoking more "joints", or smoking the same number of joints but with stronger cannabis. The regularity with which someone smokes cannabis is also significant even if the dose on each occasion is not excessive. Some of the surveys showed without a shadow of doubt that though the likelihood of psychotic breakdown was dose-related, any use of cannabis created a certain risk. This increase in risk remains significant even after adjustments are made for other substances taken, and the previous psychiatric state of the person. As long ago as the 1960s even moderately observant clinicians had noted that though, worldwide, 1 per cent of people have been shown to suffer from a psychotic disease, a much higher proportion of the population had similar symptoms but without the psychotic hallmarks. They did not quite fit the profile considered necessary for a diagnosis of schizophrenia or one of the allied psychoses. The people with the lesser syndrome were described as suffering from a schizotypal personality disorder. It was assumed that they had the same genetic make-up as those with a psychosis but, for some reason, had not developed the full picture of the disease. Recent research carried out by the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London has shown that as many as one person in four carries the genes that may increase liability to develop a psychotic illness if they smoke cannabis. The prevalence of psychotic disease has hitherto been about 1 per cent of the population, but if the politicians and their medical advisers continue to fail to understand the danger in which their laissez faire approach places a quarter of the population, it can be only a matter of time before this increases. Various sociological explanations have been put forward to explain a refusal to admit the hazards of cannabis smoking. The most understandable is that cannabis became acceptable to the younger generation in the Sixties and Seventies. There was a fear among their elders that if they were critical they would be thought dinosaurs in that era of change. Furthermore, immigrants were likely to smoke "ganga" and it was even more reprehensible to criticise the habits of immigrants than their adolescent children. As a result, the evidence about cannabis in the politically sensitive UK has been overlooked for two generations. Scientists since the 1960s have been drawing attention to the many side-effects of cannabis. Its carcinogenic activity (greater than tobacco's), its potentially lethal effect on the cardiovascular system and heart rhythm, its influence on reproduction and the unborn foetus, and its effect on the psyche...all have been disregarded. Last week, a report by John von Radowitz, the Press Association's science correspondent, detailed another ill effect of smoking cannabis. Since the Government downgraded cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug, research by Professor Stuart Ralston, of the University of Aberdeen, has shown that in animal studies cannabis alters the balance between bone renewal and re-absorption. The density and strength of bones depends on the correct balance between bone renewal and bone re-absorption. If this is altered, osteoporosis could be the consequence. Mary Brett, the former head of health education at Dr Challoner's Grammar School, has become an expert on the effect of cannabis on the behaviour and intellectual ability of adolescents. For years she has said that one of the first symptoms of cannabis smoking is an apparently inexplicable deterioration in intellectual and academic performance. This is one of the few markers that can be measured. Other research on the dangers of cannabis that can be added to the long list already known comes from a Belgian study. It found that cannabis smoking doubles the risk of schizophrenia among people who are genetically susceptible. Scientists at Queen's University Belfast have also advised that cannabis damages sperm and New Zealand research workers have confirmed that heavy users of cannabis are more likely - in their survey, ten times more likely - to have serious road accidents. www.timesonline.co.uk/health
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