Cannabis and its users

1
Cannabis and its users
2
Annual prevalence of cannabis use in England
Wales, 1982-2006
A
Source Home Office, British Crime Surveys,
various years
3
Life-time prevalence of cannabis use among 15-16
year old students
Sources Council of Europe, The ESPAD Report
2003, Nov. 2004
4
Cannabis potency in England Wales
Sources EMCDDA, 2006
5
The ingredients of cannabis

• CBD
• is not hallucinogenic
• has anxiety relieving properties
• no adverse effect on cognition

• THC causes
• Impairment of attention, memory and learning
• Hallucinations and Paranoid ideas

CBD Cannabidiol
THC ?9-tetrahydrocannibinol
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Potency of alcohol and cannabis

Skunk -THC 14
Traditional - THC 3
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Children and cannabis

• Not even the more fervent cannabis legaliser
  would want vodka freely available to 13 year
  olds.
• However, skunk is at present widely available to
  children aged 13 and less

8
Potential Problems

• Impairment of cognition especially memory -
  being stoned in the classroom.
• Acute paranoid reactions
• Eventual risk of psychosis

9
Hallucinations and Delusions following
Intravenous THC

• I thought you could read my mind, thats why I
  didnt answer .I felt as if my mind was nude.
• I felt I could see into the future.I thought I
  was God

• I thought you all were trying to trick me by
  changing the rules of the tests to make me fail.
  I thought you were turning the clock back to
  confuse me
• I thought that this was real.I was convinced
  this wasnt an experiment
• I thought you all were giving me THC thru the BP
  machine and the sheets

10
Cannabis consumption and risk of schizophreniform
psychosis at 26
Dunedin
Arseneault L et al (2002) BMJ, 325, 1212-1213
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Cannabis and Psychosis
Date of preparation May 2005
ZEFE905
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Studies examining Cannabis Use and Risk of
Psychosis
Andreasson et al, 1988 Zammit et al, 2002 Van
Os et al, 2002 Fergusson et al, 2003 Arsenault
et al, 2002 Henquet et al, 2005 Weiser et al,
2002
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Cannabis is bad for the brains of politicians

• By accident, the controversy over the
  reclassification of cannabis provided an
  opportunity for unofficial public education
• This has resulted in a fall in use.
• What we need now is a proper education campaign
  aimed especially at children