News (Media Awareness Project) - UK: Cannabis Harms Mental Health, Scientists Warn |
| Title: | UK: Cannabis Harms Mental Health, Scientists Warn |
| Published On: | 2007-04-29 |
| Source: | Independent on Sunday (UK) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-12 07:18:02 |
CANNABIS HARMS MENTAL HEALTH, SCIENTISTS WARN
New evidence showing how cannabis disrupts brain function will be
presented at an international conference in London this week.
Some of the world's top scientists will gather at the Institute of
Psychiatry to warn of the drug's dangers and how it can precipitate
psychosis and schizophrenia. "We are very close to finding a causal
link between cannabis and mental illness - all evidence is pointing
in that direction," Dr Zerrin Atakan, one of the conference
organisers, told The Independent on Sunday.
Dr Atakan has been involved in the first study into how cannabis
affects the brain, and she says that it has a destabilising
influence: "There is a disturbance of the area governing thoughts and
emotions and this seems to be related to temporary psychotic symptoms
suffered by some of the people that took part."
New images from MRI scans will show how those given the cannabis
compound THC had a significantly reduced activity in the frontal lobe
- - a part of the brain responsible for co-ordination and emotional behaviour.
Philip McGuire, professor of psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience at
the Institute of Psychiatry, who will be presenting the findings,
said: "What hasn't been known up to now is how THC has produced
psychotic symptoms. This research is about linking what we already
knew of the effects of cannabis to the mechanism underlying them in the brain."
Doctors say that it is impossible to predict with certainty which
people might be vulnerable to psychosis and schizophrenia, aside from
those with a family history of such problems.
All this comes as a ferocious debate continues over the mental health
risks of skunk - a potent new form of the drug - first reported in
this newspaper last month. More than 22,000 people in Britain needed
treatment for cannabis use in 2006, and emergency hospital admissions
have doubled in the past five years.
A new campaigning group, Talking About Cannabis, is being launched in
London this Friday, and will lobby the Government to tackle the crisis.
New evidence showing how cannabis disrupts brain function will be
presented at an international conference in London this week.
Some of the world's top scientists will gather at the Institute of
Psychiatry to warn of the drug's dangers and how it can precipitate
psychosis and schizophrenia. "We are very close to finding a causal
link between cannabis and mental illness - all evidence is pointing
in that direction," Dr Zerrin Atakan, one of the conference
organisers, told The Independent on Sunday.
Dr Atakan has been involved in the first study into how cannabis
affects the brain, and she says that it has a destabilising
influence: "There is a disturbance of the area governing thoughts and
emotions and this seems to be related to temporary psychotic symptoms
suffered by some of the people that took part."
New images from MRI scans will show how those given the cannabis
compound THC had a significantly reduced activity in the frontal lobe
- - a part of the brain responsible for co-ordination and emotional behaviour.
Philip McGuire, professor of psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience at
the Institute of Psychiatry, who will be presenting the findings,
said: "What hasn't been known up to now is how THC has produced
psychotic symptoms. This research is about linking what we already
knew of the effects of cannabis to the mechanism underlying them in the brain."
Doctors say that it is impossible to predict with certainty which
people might be vulnerable to psychosis and schizophrenia, aside from
those with a family history of such problems.
All this comes as a ferocious debate continues over the mental health
risks of skunk - a potent new form of the drug - first reported in
this newspaper last month. More than 22,000 people in Britain needed
treatment for cannabis use in 2006, and emergency hospital admissions
have doubled in the past five years.
A new campaigning group, Talking About Cannabis, is being launched in
London this Friday, and will lobby the Government to tackle the crisis.
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