Re-classification of Cannabis in the UK..

[Webbo]

I'd be extremely surprised if the number of drug related accidents was anywhere near the number of alcohol related accidents. In fact, it's pretty much a no-brainer that one...

You're forgetting the effects smoking has on it's surroundings. The whole acceptance of smoking and drinking culture creates a much larger and more dangerous social environment for children, than drugs ever will. Obviously we could argue on and on about costs and benefits to the government, so that's a dead-end.

As I just stated, I'd be far more worried about my children getting into that culture than the far less likely risk of them trying out hard drugs. If they're adequately educated, they'd know drugs are dangerous and will be far less inclined to take them...

Someone posted something in the drink driving debate saying something like drugs accounted for 25% of road accidents, I can't find any stats to back this up but I can believe it.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[shen]

Someone posted something in the drink driving debate saying something like drugs accounted for 25% of road accidents, I can't find any stats to back this up but I can believe it.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Hmm seems a lot, but I was including all other alcohol-related 'accidents' like domestic violence, brawls etc etc.

But let's just do that then

[blue blood]

Anyone know where i can get some decent weed?

Cheers

ive got some cracking weeds growing in my back garden, shall i bag it up for you?

[blue blood]

i think we should remember there is a massive difference between bush weed, the stuff smoked in the 70' and the stuff people have nowadays called 'skunk'

the bush weed was very natural and a mild stimulant. Skunk is very strong stuff and can be pretty dangerous. I have a friend who smokes a fair bit of skunk everyday and i can see how his personality has changed over the years.

I think if someone wants to get stoned and waste their life away, thats their choice, the same way people have the choice of getiilng shit faced every friday or smoke 40 a day.

Personally im quite happy enjoying my precious life!

[Daggers]

The drug induced psychosis seen when Cannabis is the main substance being abused is distinct phenomenologically from other psychosis.

It is unusual for such a psychosis to occur without other drugs being involved to some extent and so it is difficult to tease out the differences between the effects of Cannabis and other drugs.

However it is misleading and dangerous, to our youth in particular, to label Cannabis as “softâ€. In fact the serious adverse effects of Cannabis have been known for some time now and Hall and Solowij in the British Journal of Psychiatry sounded warnings in 1997 about such issues as dependence on Cannabis, adolescent developmental problems, permanent cognitive impairment as well as involvement in and the development of psychosis.[1]

There are suggestions that in a small number of cases Cannabis is capable of precipitating psychosis, going on to the chronic picture described below, in people who have had no family and personal history of psychiatric illness.There have been suggestions that such people may be the ones who have started Cannabis in their teens and caused disturbance to neural connectivity. However, it seems Cannabis can precipitate or exacerbate a schizophrenic tendency in a characteristic manner.[2]

ACUTE SYMPTOMS OF CANNABIS PSYCHOSIS

International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10)

Often the combination of symptoms makes one suspicious that schizophrenia is present but at the same time there is an affective component. There may be the suspicion that the condition, either in part of whole, is feigned for reasons that are unclear because the pattern of symptoms do not fall easily into the usual criteria for psychosis. Drug taking is often denied, or the amount that is admitted by the patient is so little that one cannot say that this accounts for the current symptoms. Worse still, patients may not even consider Cannabis as an illicit or dangerous drug and so do not mention using it. Hallucinations are vague and delusions may be transitory with little in the way of thought disorder. There is often a lack of volition and a history of gradually deteriorating social ability and contact with others, including significant others. This history will often be verified by relatives and close friends who may be either completely ignorant of the drug taking, or confirm that there has been some in the past but believe that there has been little drug taking recently. There is often a depressive component with suicide attempts in the past but nothing recent or, if there is, then they are only ineffectual pleas for help. The person has usually lost his or her job some months or weeks before due to their poor performance at work. There is often very poor memory and concentration, which may be marked at the time of presentation. Paranoid delusions may be present and quite severe which can be the most alarming psychotic feature and result in hospital admission. If confronted with aggressive and authoritarian staff, who indicate verbally or non-verbally, that they do not believe the patient, the patient may become violent or simply leave against medical advice. There is a slow and gradual effect of cannabis and the symptoms continue to worsen for some time after the person stops using it. Thus by the time of presentation the person may be so disorganised and confused that they can’t even arrange their next “cone†or “jointâ€. Over the following few days the symptoms ease quickly. The improvement is easily credited to the neuroleptics and/or the antidepressants, which may in fact have contributed to the improvement. Symptoms such as the paranoia, hallucinations and depression fade until the patient is allowed to go on leave from the hospital and, a worsening of the symptoms may follow this. More often than not the nursing staff are the first to become suspicious that drugs have been taken when the patient is on leave from the hospital.

It could even be that the drug screen only indicated small dose drug taking or even absent. The International Classification of Disease indicates the following symptoms due to Cannabis.

“There must be dysfunctional behaviour, as evidenced by at least one at of the following:

(1) Apathy and sedation

(2) Disinhibition

(3) Psychomotor retardation

(4) Impaired attention

(5) Impaired judgement

(6) Interference with personal functioning.

C. At least one of the following signs must be present:

(1) Drowsiness

(2) Slurred speech

(3) Pupillary constriction (except in anoxia from severe overdose, when pupillary dilatation occurs)

(4) Decreased level of consciousness (e.g. Stupor, coma)

F12.0 Acute intoxication due to use of cannabinoids F12.0 DCR-10

A. The general criteria for acute intoxication (F1x.0) must be met.

B. There must be dysfunctional behaviour or perceptual disturbances including at least one at least one of the following:

(1) Euphoria and disinhibition

(2) Anxiety or agitation

(3) Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation

(4) Temporal slowing (a sense that time is passing very slowly, and/or the person is experiencing a rapid flow of ideas)

(5) Impaired judgement

(6) Impaired attention

(7) Impaired reaction time

(8) Auditory, visual or tactile illusions

(9) Hallucinations, with preserved orientation

(l0) depersonalization

(11) derealization

(12) Interference with personal functioning

* increased appetite

* dry mouth

* conjunctival injection

* tachycardia.â€

[3] DSM IV also has similar but less complete information under the heading of Cannabis Induced Psychotic Disorder and refers the reader to a general description of “ Sunstance­Induced Psychotic Disorderâ€. That is the difference in the phenomenology of Cannabis Psychosis and other substance induced psychosis is not made, however this is now rather dated being 1994 when published.[4]

It can be seen from this that the range of symptoms is quite extensive and not confined to the core symptoms mentioned at the beginning.

CHRONIC SYMPTOMS OF CANNABIS PSYCHOSIS

Patients are left with the well-recognised and permanent symptoms of memory loss, apathy, loss of motivation and, paranoid ideation. These symptoms known as “ the Amotivational Syndrome†in the past are usually permanent.[5] If Cannabis using resumes then the acute symptoms redevelop. The chronic state can also be arrived at without a preceding psychotic episode. After Cannabis started to be widely used about 20 years ago, for permanent damage to occur it was felt by some that Cannabis had to be heavily used over at least three years [6]. However, there is accumulating evidence that smaller amount will do damage also and in animals “ deficits on tasks dependent on frontal lobe function have been reported in cannabis users†[7]. It is very difficult to conduct research in this area, as it is not acceptable to harm humans by doing trials with damaging substances such as Cannabis. However there is accumulating evidence of the psychological consequences of using Cannabis [8]. It is logical that to get the permanent “ Amotivational Syndrome†small amounts to damage have to accumulate incrementally. All this is in addition to the recognised danger of a recurrence of a pre-existing illness, such as Schizophrenia or Manic-depressive disorder. There are suggestions that Cannabis “ caused schizophrenia in young people and (or) enhanced the symptoms, especially in young people poorly able to cope with stress or in whom the antipsychotic therapy was unsuccessfulâ€. [9] Caspari found “patients with previous cannabis abuse had significantly more rehospitalizations, tended to worse psychosocial functioning, and scored significantly higher on the psychopathological syndromes "thought disturbance" (BPRS) and "hostility" (AMDP). These results confirm the major impact of cannabis abuse on the long-term outcome of schizophrenic patientsâ€.[10]P

References

[1] Hall W, Solowij N, “ Long-term Cannabis use and Mental Health “ 1997 British Journal of Psychiatry, August, 171:107-8

[2] Hall A, Degenhardt, “Cannabis and Psychosis†Australian National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Presented at The Inaugural International Cannabis and Psychosis Conference 1999 , Melbourne 16-17 February 1999

[3] World Health Organisation, Geneva, (1992) “ The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disordersâ€

[4] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , Fourth Edition, American Psychiatric Association,1994

[5] Schwartz RH “Marijuana: an overviewâ€. Pediatr Clin North Am 1987 Apr;34(2):305-17 .

[6] Boettcher B, Medical Journal of Australia 11/25 December 1982 “Marijuana and Apathyâ€

[7] Jentsch J D, Verrico C D, Le D, Roth RH, “ Repeated exposure to dleta9-tetragydrocannabinol reduces prefrontal cortal dopamine metabolism in the rat “ ,Neurosci Lett (1998) May 1;246(3):169-72

[8] Hall W, Solowji N, Lemon J, The health and psychological consequences of Cannabis use. National Drug Strategy Monograph Series no 25. Canberra: Australia Government Publishing Service, 1994

[9] van Amsterdam JG, van der Laan JW, Slangen JL, “Cognitive and psychotic effects after cessation of chronic cannabis use “ Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1998 Mar 7;142(10):504-8

[10] Caspari D, “Cannabis and Schizophrenia: Results of a follow-up Study†Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 1999;249(1):45-9

[ozleicester]

tobacco - causes more deaths than any other drug

Alcohol - repsonsible for more than 70% of all police call outs

Cannabis - Go directly to "The Streets" and listen to "The irony of it all"

[James.]

I hate to say this because it is very patronising and I don't mean to be. I accept that drug laws aren't working and I used to believe the same as you but when you become a parent your views change. You can't deny that drugs have killed , caused mental problems, split up families and generally brought misery to people. The thought of my children getting mixed up with drugs frightens the life out of me, anything that makes them harder to get is good in my book.

As shen has already pointed out alcohol and tobacco all have the same effects on people.

Trust me, if someone wants to get hold of drugs they will do. Pills, coke, weed, ketamine, speed, whatever, is very, very easy to obtain currently. And cheaper than ever. Controlling supply would mean control of price. I would not be suprised if legalising would make some drugs HARDER to get hold of. Or at least if people did want to take them they'd be an adequate support structure in place to make it as safe as possible, minimising damage to the individual and society.

What's lacking is education. And through legalisation the opportunity for effective education is far more realistic.

I haven't even mentioned the positive impact on drug related crime from legalising...

[Daggers]

tobacco - causes more deaths than any other drug

Alcohol - repsonsible for more than 70% of all police call outs

Relevance?

I'm sick of knee-jerk justifications of a drug based on it not being as bad as other drugs because you are not comparing like for like.

Smoking is a chronic abuse problem, drinking resulting in police action has involved drinking to chronic levels - chronic abue of cannabis is carried out by a far smaller percentage of the population but ends in devastating results none-the-less.

To lay claim that we should leave cannabis alone as there are other areas more deserving only serves to ignore rather than address a problem - and it has been stated over and over: The current system does not work. Prohibition has been proven not to work, especially at teen level.

Anyone believing that the criminalising of cannabis prevents it from entering schools is an absolute idiot. Secondary schools have drugs in them and the current method of dealing with drugs encourages this because it sends it all underground. If you want to address any issue in life you have to get it out in the open...

[Raj]

Leicester City is the only drug i need.

Thats why im a miserable twat.

[Daggers]

Leicester City is the only drug i need.

I wish someone would ****ing ban it

[Tommy G]

What about drink driving or other alcohol-related accidents?

*A bit tongue in cheek* What would you prefer? A miserable sod killing himself with an overdose inside the first 6 months using heroine - or - a miserable sod killing himself slowly with alcohol/cigarettes and costing society a fortune in health service because he she spends a large amount of time receiving treatment for his/her ailment?

I know what I'd prefer...

Seriously though, I'd be far more worried about children getting the habit of drinking booze every day than them taking hardcore drugs...

*Tongue in cheek also*Smokers pay a fortune in tax and die earlier costing less in pensions, I think the government's on a winner there.

I was about to say that. There is a stat that Smokers pay enough in tax (bearing in mind tax on a packet of ciigarettes is about 85%) to cover any medical treatment they receive. If you are a heavy smoker then you could potentially be giving the government £4,000 per annum in tax. Say you need an ioperation ater 15 years then there's 60k you've built up in tax anyway. Not to mention other forms of indirect tax on alcohol, clothing etc

Then theres income tax obviously

Im not saying smoking is right, but before people say 'oh its a burden on society, and that we're paying for their operations bla bla bla its not strictly true.

[Raj]

I wish someone would ****ing ban it

OR make it a Class A Drug which can only be prescribed by a medical person type bloke.

something witty like that...... ...i'll go now.....

[BigGibbo]

Leicester City is the only drug i need.

Thats why im a miserable twat.

Ahem its early

[Zingari]

Leicester City is the only drug i need.

Thats why im a miserable twat.

you've been fooled , its merely a placebo and is totally inneffectual