Cannabis users ‘playing Russian roulette with brain damage’

Cannabis psychosis is on the rise as use and potency of the drug increases, experts and police warn.

Terry Hammond, 78, spoke about his son’s devastating decline into psychosis following cannabis use, and urged people to wake up to the danger of the increasingly popular drug.

Despite this, there has been a recent push from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for the Government to decriminalise the possession of cannabis.

‘Ruined his life’

Retired charity director Terry Hammond recalled how his teenage son Steven started smoking skunk — a highly potent strain of cannabis — secretly at a friend’s house. Just six months in, Steven became suddenly paranoid. “He was a boy gripped by absolute fear and terror,” Terry recalled, “his beautiful mind had just been destroyed.”

Now, 25 years on, following therapy and medical treatment, Terry described how his son still suffers from the effects of his early drug use: “It has completely ruined his life, and as parents we have had to suffer the bereavement of losing our son. Fundamentally, it has damaged his brain for good. Young people need to know smoking cannabis is playing Russian roulette with brain damage.”

Linsey Rafferty, 42, shared her experience of cannabis psychosis: “I was hearing things and writing all over the walls of my home. I threw my phone away because I thought it had been tapped and was eating out of bins. It all made total sense to me at the time”.

She said: “I used to think drugs should be legalised, but not anymore.”

Harmful

Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Niall Campbell explained: “Psychosis often begins with young people smoking a few joints and feeling a bit paranoid. But if they don’t stop, over time they can reach a psychotic state which won’t go away, even if they stop smoking. Sadly, this psychosis may last a lifetime”.

Dorset’s Police and Crime Commissioner David Sidwick wrote a letter last month signed by 13 other Commissioners calling cannabis a “chronically dangerous drug”.

Zaheen Ahmed, Director of Therapy at the UK Addiction Treatment group (UKAT), said: “the view that it is a harm-free drug is not true. The harmful effects can just be slow to appear, but we are now seeing a tsunami of patients with damage”.

UKAT reported a 20 per cent increase in people admitted for cannabis addiction, including patients as young as 18.

Potency and consumption

Dr Diego Quattrone and Dr Robin Murray, professors of psychiatric research at King’s College London, said their unpublished research indicated that a 75 per cent increase in cannabis psychosis was due to the prevalence of skunk, which now accounts for 94 per cent of the cannabis found in the UK.

Dr Murray explained: “Across Europe, in the hubs with the highest cannabis consumption, namely London and Amsterdam, psychosis is up to five times more common than in other areas.”

He added: “we know that where cannabis is legal, both the potency and consumption rates shoot up.”

Dr Quattrone noted that legalising cannabis “has not been successful at all” in North America. He warned that legalisation makes people believe the drug is safe to use, stating: “It’s just led people to consume more cannabis and higher-potency strains”.

Increasingly dangerous

Edward Davies, Research Director at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “The drug market is becoming increasingly dangerous – not just with more potent cannabis, but also opiates, and the emergence of xylazine, a deadly animal tranquilliser on the streets”.

He added: “Funding for addiction services has been slashed by 60 per cent since 2012, leaving vast gaps in treatment availability.”

Davies called for “urgent investment in treatment and recovery services, plus specialised clinics to address cannabis-induced psychosis”, and for law enforcement to be “empowered” to take decisive action.

Decisive action

In Gosport, Hampshire, the Not in Our Town initiative has been run to target organised crime, leading to 112 people being arrested in drug raids throughout the year.

Donna Jones, Hampshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said the town had been “blighted” with drug dealing and knife crime.

Gosport Councillor Peter Chegwyn commented that following the initiative: “It’s much better now. The whole atmosphere is improving.”