Pubdate: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 Source: Daily Telegraph (UK) Copyright: 2008 Telegraph Group Limited Contact: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114 Author: Jason Braham CANNABIS SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS MORE DANGEROUS Sir - My daughter Lucy, 25, was killed by Oxford undergraduate William Jaggs, a schizophrenic who had been a cannabis user since the age of 13. He had, in common with a number of other savage killers whose cases were reported within a 12-month period, a background of cannabis use. It is not of overriding importance to me whether the effect of cannabis on the developing mind had caused their psychoses, precipitated a disorder to which they were vulnerable or merely worsened the course of a disorder they already had. The argument against a causal link between cannabis use in adolescence and schizophrenia is a statistical one. I have read all the studies available on the internet which formed the basis of the article "Cannabis use and risk of psychosis in later life", which was published in the Lancet in July 2007. Only one of these research papers, from the University of New South Wales, July 2003, dismissed evidence of a causal link, as despite the increased use of cannabis in Australia over the previous 30 years there had been no corresponding rise in cases of schizophrenia. Professor Les Iverson of Oxford University uses the same statistic in challenging the Lancet conclusions, which included the estimate that eight per cent of schizophrenia cases could be prevented by elimination of cannabis use in the population. Widespread cannabis use by those under 16 is a comparatively recent phenomenon and, allowing for the delay before the onset of the first psychotic episode, the eight per cent is not going to be easily visible yet. We should expect an increase in the rates of schizophrenia over the next 10 years. In tackling the obvious behavioural problems of my daughter's killer there was a succession of serious mistakes, which included a reluctance to address the issue of his drug use, which should at least have been suspected from the company he kept. Unfortunately, the generation of his parents and tutors, having passed through their own student years when cannabis was a social, "life-style" drug, has assumed its use is inevitable, particularly among the intelligent and arty, which is how William Jaggs liked to present himself. Even when, 10 years on from his first cannabis experience, he had added heroin and crack cocaine to the usual cocktail of "recreational" drugs and his appearance and behaviour suggested that things were seriously awry, only a handful of people felt they should intervene. It was too late to prevent a terrible demonstration of the fact that drugs do not only harm the person who uses them. Whether reinstating the higher classification for cannabis will make an appreciable statistical difference to its use, is not so important to me. I hope it would reduce it, and I am pretty sure it would not increase it. What matters is the message it puts out, not only to the young but to their parents, that the stuff is dangerous. Jason Braham, Dolau, Radnorshire - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake