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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Becoming disjointed
John Naish The Times
Saturday 28 Jan 2006 An experimental course may help middle-class marijuana smokers trying to quit. John Naish gets the inside dope Until ten weeks ago, Jane Lamarr's cannabis problem bore a remarkable similarity to the Government's dilemma with the drug. She was increasingly aware of its damage to her physical and mental health but didn't know what to do about it. So she tried to fudge the issue, maintaining her outwardly responsible life while secretly getting wrecked every night. Fortunately for Lamarr, before her situation went beyond "totally bonkers", she discovered an experimental new course created to help dependent dope-smokers wean themselves off their all-pervading habits. Ever since the Government downgraded cannabis from a Class B to Class C drug two years ago, evidence has mounted on the potential harmful effects of marijuana, particularly when the odd recreational toke grows into habitual use. But last week, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, ruled out toughening the law on cannabis, after a study of the original downgrading decision. Instead he announced a nationwide campaign highlighting the danger of smoking the drug. Also last week, fresh evidence of hash use's dangers appeared in the British Medical Journal, in the form of a major review into the links between dope and psychosis. The review, by three professors at Otago University, New Zealand, declared that 10 per cent of cases of psychosis are caused by cannabis. They described as robust and persistent the research-based link between hash and "severe mental illness characterised by the presence of delusions, hallucinations, and other cognitive and behavioural impairments that interfere with the ability to meet the ordinary demands of life". They warned that the risk rises significantly if smokers start young and smoke frequently. Of course, many youthful smokers' habits simply fade under pressure from those four horsemen of the ageing apocalypse: jobs, partners, children and mortgages; until their encounters with the drug are limited to post-prandial puffs at suburban dinner parties. Sir Paul McCartney's wife Heather Mills revealed last week that she gave him a "good incentive" to renounce his lifelong hash habit by making it a precondition for their getting married. Not all of us can depend on the leverage of a strong woman, though. Lamarr finally found a way to renounce her heavy habit through a small ad in Metro, the London free newspaper. She was, however, initially deeply suspicious. The 28-year-old Londoner manages an NHS hospital administration system, but for the past 12 years had been smoking up to a quarter of an ounce (7g) of cannabis a day, which she describes as "quite hard core". Others might call it titanic. "I was a real go-for-it smoker," she says. "I had two different lives. I'd get home, disconnect the phones and get stoned. Last year it felt totally bonkers. The advert I saw said: ‘Do you want to give up smoking marijuana?' It was such a small ad I thought it might be something creepy, but I enrolled because I thought it might be the help I needed." The course is called Clearhead and has been co-founded by James Langton and Adrienne McLeod, two former habitual smokers who believe that people who have become emotionally dependent on cannabis need practical advice and support with ditching the habit, rather than 12-step spiritual programmes used by groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Three months ago they began offering Londoners free places on a pilot project for what they hope will become a nationwide network of group-support courses, comprising an initial weekend and six Wednesday-evening follow-up meetings. Langton, a 49-year-old art dealer, had smoked hash since he was 15 and stopped only four years ago. "I realised that it was controlling my life and I was moving farther away from the things I wanted to achieve. When I gave up, I got involved with running a drugs helpline and decided to start something practical," he says. He stresses that the course is not therapy. "We deal with the specific issue of cannabis dependence, through group talks, learning from each other's experience. We encourage people to explore problems such as depression and lack of self-confidence, and encourage them to do physical things which will enable them to relax naturally, such as swimming, cooking or redecorating their homes, to keep their minds off cannabis. We try to make people's motivation to stop stronger than their fear of stopping." At the end of the first session, which runs all day on Saturday, participants are invited to go home and to smoke their last joint or pipe. "The act of setting a weekend when you're going to stop is hugely important for some people — and terrifying for others — because of their physical and emotional dependence," says Langton. For Lamarr, the experience ultimately proved very positive. "James made me add up the number of hours a week I spent stoned and it was really worrying," she says. "I sat down on the Monday after the course and thought ‘I've got to do this'. Actually, I really regretted giving up and I regretted going on the course. But I felt I couldn't go back. It's two months and two weeks since I last got stoned and I still get cravings, but I've not asked anyone for a spliff. And I won't." In the past three months, 20 people have completed Clearhead's pilot courses. So far, Langton has funded it from his own pocket. But, he says: "We're just about to start our first paid-for course, which will cost UKP144 per person. We aim to run courses in other UK cities this year, too." For more infomation, visit www.clearhead.org.uk Are you going to pot? 1 Is cannabis your primary way of relaxing? 2 Do you smoke cannabis to avoid dealing with problems? 3 Do you use cannabis to suppress feelings and emotions? 4 Do you often feel disengaged from life? 5 Do you mostly smoke by yourself? 6 Are you constantly trying, and failing, to cut down or to stop smoking cannabis? 7 Does your cannabis smoking cause problems with memory, motivation or concentration? 8 Do you plan your life around your cannabis use? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you should consider giving cannabis a break, at least. How getting stoned can make you psychotic Research in the British Medical Journal last week says it may be because cannabis changes the way the brain processes the chemical messenger dopamine. Cannabis's pleasures are due largely to an ingredient: delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This influences receptors in the brain that release important neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, noradrenalin, acetylcholine and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Collectively, this inteference may produce a cascade of changes in the way the brain's messengers function, possibly resulting in pleasure, heightened awareness, ravenous hunger, the yen to watch dull TV for hours...and perhaps paranoia and delusions. The effects are normally short-lived but repeated exposure to THC in susceptible people may permanently change the way their neurotransmitters work, which could, in the long run, lead to psychosis. Research indicates that cannabis-induced changes in the brain's dopamine messengers are the most important factor. People with a particular variation of a gene that controls dopamine, called COMT, are more prone to becoming psychotic this way.
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