Download Speech - Cannabis Skunk Sense

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APPG Cannabis: Harmful effects on developing brains
Cannabis Talk Wednesday April 13th 2016
Mary Brett
Article 33 The Convention on the Rights of the Child.
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative,
social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs
and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to
prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances.
The prime purpose of drugs education self-evidently should be to prevent schoolchildren from ever
taking or experimenting with drugs. Similarly from an adult’s point of view, the fundamental rationale
of drugs education should be the protection of children from drug use and its serious risks. It’s common
sense!
Most children actually fear drugs, and want our help to avoid them. Peer group pressure is very
powerful. True scientific unexaggerated facts provide that help. I was constantly asked for sound
reliable information to give to friends as a reason for not joining in, and to try to stop them from
dabbling. Most children are onside. They need, want and value rules and regulations, and feel safe and
secure when they have boundaries to kick against.
Random drug testing also provides a reason to say no. The 6 schools in my area introduced ‘sniffer dogs’
under a police initiative. A survey beforehand found 98% of parents, 92% of staff and a huge 82% of
pupils in favour. Children want an education without distractions. They need and want drug prevention
education – and it works!
Drug use is NOT the norm! Around 2.2% (1,320,000) of the UK population regularly (more than
once/month) use any drug, so around 98% do not (BCS). However 6% of 11 to 15 year olds regularly use
drugs, mainly cannabis - about 200,000 children (Smoking…). This should worry us. If 200,000 children
suddenly became ill, all hell would break loose. Brains only fully mature in the twenties. The younger
they start, the more likely they are to become addicted, have mental illnesses or progress to other drugs.
Receptor sites for cannabis are on many brain cells, and cells elsewhere in the body, so its effects are
widespread.
Messages pass along nerve fibres (neurons) as tiny electrical impulses crossing the gap (synapse),
between cells as chemicals (neurotransmitters). There are dozens of these brain’s natural drugs. Each
neurotransmitter molecule has a specific shape fitting into its own receptor site on the next cell, as a key
fits a lock.
Mind-altering drugs operate at synapses, mimicking the neurotransmitters by shape, increasing their
rate of release, blocking them or preventing their recycling. They take control!
The cannabis “high” is due to psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that mimics one of the most
abundant neurotransmitters, anandamide. Anandamide regulates how active neurons are, and how
much neurotransmitter they release. Levels of the neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins
etc for pleasure, mood, pain, appetite, motivation, memory etc are all regulated and kept in balance by
anandamide, mostly by negative feedback. But THC is much stronger and persistent than anandamide.
It is foreign to the body so there are no enzymes to break it down, and being fat-soluble, it persists in the
fatty brain cells, around 50% for a week, 10% for a month, with traces for weeks, still interfering with
total brain functioning. Anandamide is overwhelmed, and the whole brain chemical signalling system is
thrown into chaos.
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Sixties and seventies THC content of herbal cannabis was 1-2% - unavailable now! Skunk had a THC
content averaging 16.2%, ranging to 46% in the last Home Office Potency Study in 2008. 80% of the
cannabis seized was “skunk”, the other 20% mostly hash (resin) around 4-6% THC. We understand that
skunk is the only type of cannabis now available in London (RM). The Dutch consider THC content over
15% to be a class ‘A’ drug. These figures are 8 years out of date. We badly need another potency study.
“Old-fashioned” herbal cannabis had similar amounts of THC and anti-psychotic CBD (Cannabidiol)
which counteracted some of the psychotic effects of THC, but today’s skunk has only 0.1% CBD.
The level of dopamine, the ‘pleasure’ neurotransmitter, increases naturally when eating, listening to
music, exercising and so on, kept under control by anandamide. But THC increases the amount of
dopamine. This gives the ‘high’ but in excess, can cause psychosis and psychological dependence.
Cravings persist for a long time.
Physical dependence occurs because THC replaces anandamide, whose production drops. If a person
then stops taking cannabis, the receptor sites are left empty, withdrawal sets in - irritability,
sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, even violence. Anandamide production takes some time to resume.
1 in 6 teenage users will become addicted to cannabis. With daily users it’s now 1 in 2 (NIDA).
13,659 under 18s, including 200 aged 12 or under were treated for cannabis addiction in 2013/4 – a 50%
rise in 7 years, almost certainly due to the increased strength of THC. The number treated for alcohol
was 3,776. (Public Health England Report). Rehab specialists say that cannabis addiction is THE most
challenging to treat (John Kelly USA). The average age of first use is 13.
Cannabis can cause psychosis. Brains of people with schizophrenia and psychosis have excess dopamine.
Too much taken at a time will ensure a psychotic episode of varying lengths. Smoking cannabis before
the age of 15 increases the risk fourfold of developing psychotic illnesses. Skunk users are almost 7 times
more at risk than hash users. The first paper linking cannabis with psychosis - 1845!
Cannabis doubles the risk of schizophrenia and researchers now accept that some people are genetically
vulnerable. The ATK1 gene may be responsible. The early use of cannabis lowers the age of onset of
schizophrenia. Recently 24% of all new schizophrenia cases in South London, where Prof Sir Robin
Murray is based, were found to be due to skunk.
So what does this cost? I asked Prof Murray, our most prominent cannabis researcher and Chair of The
Schizophrenia Commission. Schizophrenia costs the country £11.8b annually. Skunk-related
schizophrenia costs somewhere between £1.77billion (15% of cases) and £2.83 billion (24% cases in S
London) per year, probably around £2.2 billion.
Cannabis is NOT a ‘peaceful’ drug. Young males are nearly 4 times more likely to be violent than nonusers, the risk for alcohol is around 2. Cannabis features in many homicides, the most high profile, Lee
Rigby. Some Daesh terrorists, it appears, are fuelled by cannabis. Psychosis or withdrawal are thought to
be behind the violence.
Some pot users are anxious, panicky or hallucinate, some are apathetic. Deep depression doubles in
weekly users and can lead to suicides. In Sweden, more suicides occurred among those using cannabis
than amphetamines, alcohol or heroin and the deaths were more violent. Serotonin, the ‘happiness’
neurotransmitter is depleted.
Academic performance plummets. A weekly or even monthly joint will ensure a permanent THC
presence. New cells and connections are made in learning and memory processes throughout life in the
hippocampus. THC reduces hippocampus neuron activity below the level needed for memory formation
and neuron connections are gradually lost. Regular users have smaller hippocampuses, attention deficits,
impaired learning and poorer memories
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A grade D student is 4 times more likely to use cannabis than a grade A. Teenage use continuing into
adulthood can lose on average 8 IQ points – almost certainly permanently. A cannabis personality
develops, they can’t think logically. Users have fixed opinions and answers. They can’t find words, can’t
take criticism - it’s always someone else’s fault, and can’t plan their day. Families suffer from violent
mood swings, houses get trashed. At the same time they are lonely, miserable and feel misunderstood.
They are twice as likely to drop out of education. Brain scans have shown shrinkage in several brain
areas, and just recently a paper found that skunk harms key neurons linking the 2 halves of the brain,
lesions appear, badly affecting communication.
‘Few children using cannabis even occasionally will achieve their full potential’.
Driving is affected, accidents double. Over 24 hours after taking THC, airline pilots, trying to “land” on
flight simulators were making mistakes and thought they were fine. An average 20mg joint is thought to
have the same effect as being just over the drink-drive limit. Alcohol + cannabis is 16 times more
dangerous. Apart from driving, this combination can be deadly. Too much alcohol can cause death, but
often they are sick. Cannabis inhibits the vomiting reflex.
Cannabis smoke has many of the same constituents as tobacco but more carcinogens -- in cancer terms a
joint equals 4/5 cigarettes. Rare cancers of the head and neck in young people and badly damaged lungs
have been documented.
Cells have a life-span and THC speeds up the programmed cell death (apoptosis) of new cells being made
in the body, like white blood cells, the defence cells of our immune system, so disease susceptibility rises.
There are fewer sperm. Infertility, impotence, even testicle cancer have been reported.
Anandamide plays a crucial part in foetal brain development. It guides neurons to the right places for
correct functioning and wires them up, making new synapses and connections. THC completely messes
up this finely tuned process, and the developing foetus is damaged, birth weight is lower and children
may have problems with behaviour and cognitive functions as they grow. Childhood cancers
neuroblastoma and leukaemia are more common.
Blood pressure and heart rates rise to the level of real stress. Heart attacks and strokes have been
recorded. Some teenagers had strokes and died after bingeing on cannabis. Cannabis smokers tend to be
shorter than non-smokers, have worse jobs and less than average money.
Because cannabis stays in the body for weeks, tests will be positive for a long time.
Weekly cannabis users are 60 times more likely to progress to other drugs. Almost 100% of heroin users
started on cannabis. A New Zealand study from birth concluded that the greatest single factor in
progressing to other drugs is the use of cannabis. Cannabis ‘primes’ the brain for the use of other drugs.
Keith Stroup, an American pot-using lawyer, and founder of NORML (Nat. Org. Reform Marijuana
Laws) said in 1979 (Emory University), “We will use the medical marijuana argument as a red herring to
give pot a good name”. It’s a scam!
Licensed medicines must be pure single chemicals so their actions are predictable and controllable.
Cannabis has 750 substances, around 100 being cannabinoids – substances unique to the cannabis plant.
Pure THC, Nabilone here and Marinol in the States were licensed years ago but are unpopular with
doctors. CBD is currently being tested for use as an anti-psychotic medicine, but has just been rejected
by The American Epilepsy Society. Sativex (THC +CBD) is not recommended by some health
authorities, its efficacy has been challenged and it’s expensive.
Would we eat a slice of mouldy bread to get penicillin? No! The antibiotic has to be extracted and
purified. Glaucoma patients would need around 6 joints/day to reduce eye pressure. Permanently stoned
– who would employ them?
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Between 1979 and 1991, the ‘Just say no’ prevention campaign in America coincided with a dramatic
decrease in drug use. Users fell from 23 to 14 million. Cannabis and cocaine use halved, daily cannabis
use dropped 75%. This was a huge public effort involving schools, police, youth workers, the churches,
parents and the children themselves.
An American survey of young people then, found more than 70% abstained from cannabis use citing
physical or psychological damage, 40% the law and 60% parental disapproval. A survey here in 2005, in
which my school took part, had very similar results, around 90%, fearing health damage, refused drugs.
Science-based information on the effects of drug use is especially important for teens whose brains are
still developing. If more teens perceive drug use as risky, they will use them less, and be better prepared
to refuse them. (NIDA National Institute on Drug Abuse, USA Jan 2016).
In February 2016, a Cochrane Library review found that adolescents who received a Brief Intervention
did not seem to do better in reducing alcohol and cannabis use than adolescents who received
information-only interventions
Drug Prevention Education was introduced in 1995 but slowly and imperceptibly changed to harm
reduction under the last Labour government. The Coalition Government promised to restore prevention
education but it didn’t happen. The official Government information site for drugs is Harm Reduction
orientated FRANK.
Harm Reduction assumes, “Kids will use drugs anyway, we must tell them how to do it safely and give
them “informed choice”. We read, “Harm minimisation reflects the reality that many young people use
both legal and illegal substances”. Goals of Harm Reduction are to ‘minimise or prevent drug and
alcohol-related harms’ and ‘to delay the first use of illegal drugs’. Note - it’s NOT to prevent use in the
first place as stated in Article 33 of The Rights of The Child. If a child is using cannabis and is NOT
addicted then he/she should be stopped, NOT given harm reduction tips that act as green lights! – it’s an
illegal act! If they ARE addicted then they must be helped to STOP! HR condones drug taking.
No legal or illegal drugs are guaranteed safe and kids will NOT use drugs anyway. Some will TRY them,
but how many try smoking - 90%?
“Choice”! Do we let them choose to steal or spray graffiti? Children are not miniature adults. Brains
don’t mature till the twenties, and the risk-taking part develops before the inhibitory area so kids are
going to ‘take a chance’. Choice is advocated from key stage 2 (QCA guidelines). Seven to eleven year
olds are incapable of making critical life decisions that may impair their cognitive functioning and
mental health - nor should they. An age limit of 18 exists for purchasing alcohol and tobacco so why are 7
year olds deemed capable of choosing drugs. Government drug education policy far from normalising
abstinence has been to legitimise use!
“Informed”? FRANK, the Government website for drug information, is aimed at 11 to 15 year olds, but
also adults. Most drug charities are harm reduction and take information from FRANK.
Cannabis harms are ‘played down’. Information is woefully inadequate, it has huge omissions and is
badly out of date. Harm reduction tips are given!
Druglink (2013) found only 1% of schoolchildren in Nottinghamshire had found Talk to FRANK to be
helpful and a mere 2% had visited the website. FRANK receives funding of around £5m/year.
I met the FRANK team before their web re-launch in 2011 and they agreed I re-write their abysmal
cannabis section. They ignored all but 2 very small points. The Harm Reduction advice about cannabis
that I knew had resulted in children becoming psychotic, had been removed. But HR advice remains e.g.
in the sections on magic mushrooms and ecstasy.
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Their skunk poster! My pupils found it patronising, encouraged drug use, and were furious. Children
want facts. This pathetic effort is a waste of time and public money.
Harm reduction has its place in treatment one-to-one with known users - a short-term strategy on the
road to abstinence, e.g. gradually reducing the dose. But never in the classroom where harm reduction
tips can and sometimes do act as a green light for experimentation. I repeat, harm reduction condones
drug taking. Isn’t playing down the dangers of cannabis and telling children how to take it safely, illegal?
Surely it’s like acting as an accessory?
Information for FRANK’s re-launch I learned, was commissioned from The John Moores University
Liverpool – the birthplace of harm reduction, and a psychiatrist on the FRANK team was involved in
producing ‘A Summary of the Health Harms of Drugs’. Predictably it had inadequate information, was
badly out of date and played down the effects of cannabis. Unsurprisingly John Moores University shares
the top spot for students trying drugs – 89%.
I gave oral evidence about cannabis to the HASC in 2001, complained about FRANK in written and oral
evidence in 2012, at a Government Conference in September 2013 and in an e-mail afterwards. I also
submitted evidence to The Education Select Committee in May 2014. Nothing has happened.
Government-funded Mentor UK is in charge of school drug education. Masquerading as a prevention
charity it follows harm reduction policies. We find, ‘Informed choice’ and ‘protecting children and
young people from the harms of alcohol and drugs’ – not from drugs themselves! I was subjected to a
hysterical rant at a Mentor UK meeting when I challenged Professor Alex Stevens on choice. He literally
foamed at the mouth. He approves of cannabis cafes and growing your own. More worrying was the
ripple of laughter from young female primary teachers when I reminded them that cannabis was illegal!
A Mentor project, ‘Street Talk’ resulted in 70% of the 10-19 year olds, less than half of them had ever
used, saying, ‘I am confident that I know more about drugs and alcohol and can use them more safely in
future’. One of their school programmes, “Unplugged” was particularly ineffective among older girls
(13-14 year olds)”; “implementing Unplugged in one or two classes could prevent one case of alcohol
abuse and one case of cannabis use.”
Mentor UK recently joined CAYT (Centre for Analysis of Youth Transitions). CAYT ‘uses a harmminimisation approach to alcohol and drug misuse prevention’. The one scientist, Professor Harry
Sumnall on the Mentor UK board is from John Moore University! And he is a member of the panel
consulted by the Lib-Dems about cannabis legalisation. (Mentor UK website)
We are now told that arrests for cannabis possession in England and Wales have dropped by 46% since
2010. Cautions fell by 48% and the number of people charged fell by 33% (FOI). Officers have been
"freed up" for "more important" work.
So – to sum up. We have a potent neurotoxin in random quantities, replacing one of the ‘busiest’ natural
neurotransmitters, anandamide, usurping its many functions in an uncontrollable manner and creating
chaos in the normal balance of the brain chemicals. Persisting in the brain cells for weeks, it continues to
send out its destructive signals with disastrous consequences. Even on one joint/month, a person will have
a permanent presence of the drug, and as Prof Sir Robin Murray says, ‘be permanently in a state of low
intoxication. Our children are being betrayed. They are not being told about the true dangers of
cannabis, given choice to break the law at a ludicrously early age and even being told how to use drugs
more safely. And police are ‘turning a blind eye’.
Current drug education programmes fall short with regard to their scientific accuracy and their
knowledge and understanding of teens and teenage brain development. A key purpose of this relaunched APPG is to bring all this to the attention of the Government, to press for the re-instatement of
Drug Prevention Education, properly evidenced and age-appropriate, to deter children from ever using
drugs.
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WE have hit a brick wall. What more can we do to protect our young people’s developing brains, their
futures and ultimately for some, their very lives?