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