Pubdate: Sun, 14 Sep 2014
Source: Irish Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/213
Cited: http://drugsense.org/url/YrpHq1ck Lancet Psychiatry

WE MUST PROTECT OUR TEENS FROM DANGERS OF CANNABIS

New Research That Links Cannabis With Depression and Suicide in Teens 
Is Nothing Short of Alarming

One of the more idiotic statements made by Bill Clinton throughout 
his career was that as a student he smoked cannabis, but didn't 
inhale. That statement sprang to mind during the week when the 
results of a study on cannabis use in the student generation, were 
published in the medical journal The Lancet.

But at least, despite his somewhat ambivalent moral attitude, 
ex-President Clinton's progress in life was not impeded. Others in 
his own age group and younger may not have been so lucky: The Lancet 
research found that young people who smoke cannabis daily in their 
teen years are 18 times more likely to become dependent on the drug 
than those who have never smoked it. They are also eight times more 
likely to use other illicit drugs than those who never smoked cannabis.

But the most startling and disturbing finding was that daily users of 
cannabis in the teen years are seven times more likely to take their 
own lives than others in their peer group, with the risks increasing 
according to the level of dosage. The study was carried out by 
researchers in Australia and New Zealand by an academic team who 
followed nearly four thousand participants. All the participants had 
begun using cannabis before the age of 17 and they were monitored to 
the age of 30.

Teenagers who smoke cannabis regularly before the age of 17 are 60 
times less likely to finish school than those who don't. The research 
also found significant links between frequent cannabis use among 
young people and depression.

Alarming figures all. But what does it mean in practice here in 
Ireland? For a start, we know that an average of one Irish teenager 
under the age of 17 dies by suicide every month.Depression almost 
always plays a part.

Equally, we know that the National Council on Drugs and Alcohol here 
in Ireland have published figures to show that 4.5pc of 15 to 
34-year-olds in Ireland had taken cannabis in the month prior to 
being questioned on usage. We don't have figures for under 15s here 
(as usual, we don't investigate anything until it's too late), but 
The Lancet study found that 4pc of 11 to 15-year-olds in England had 
taken the drug in the previous month.

Are we any different? I doubt it, given that another finding of 
European comparative statistics has shown that 28pc of Irish 
teenagers have used cannabis within the previous month, compared with 
the EU average of 17pc. It sounds like seriously bad news for those 
campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis. But the leader of the 
Australian/New Zealand research team, Professor Edmund Sillins of the 
University of New South Wales, in commenting on their findings, 
suggested that "efforts to reform cannabis legislation should be 
carefully assessed to ensure they reduce adolescent cannabis use and 
prevent potentially adverse effects on adolescent development." In 
other words, if an adult wants to fry his or her brains, maybe they 
should be allowed to do so; but we have a responsibility to youngsters.

And we got some interesting views from what could loosely be called 
the Irish "generation cannabis" on Thursday, when reporter Colm Flynn 
went on the Dublin streets for The John Murray Show to ask young men 
and women about their cannabis usage. It was random, but very few 
were not users to one degree or another. A woman student from Belfast 
said she'd noticed that cannabis use was much more prevalent in 
Dublin among students, probably because "Dublin was much more social 
than Belfast".

A 26-year-old man who was almost incoherent said he'd begun smoking 
hash around the age of 14. It hadn't affected his schooling, because 
he'd already been "thrun' owa school." Nowadays, he smokes weed, all 
the time, because "it's more clean than hash." He does it because it 
means "you don't feel pain..." and "you get paranoid without it."

Other young-sounding male voices also said they'd begun what was now 
a daily habit "around second year" in school. The general consensus 
was that to smoke once or twice a week was "not much", although one 
interviewee commented that you always knew when someone was a regular 
user: they became "mentally soft, more distant."

One of those occasional users was a 25-year-old woman who readily 
agreed that it could lead to dangerous levels of depression, 
including suicide. She certainly had two family members whose usage 
made them paranoid, put them into cannabis psychosis and deep 
depression, and led one to suicide. She didn't sound all that bothered, though.

I don't have much in common with MEP Ming Flanagan. But I used to 
agree with him about legalising pot/cannabis/hash for adults, and 
concentrating drug-fighting resources on heavy drugs. That was 
because I considered cannabis pretty harmless, and certainly did not 
put people in danger of psychosis. Not anymore; with these figures, 
Ming and I have even less in common.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom