SKUNK: HOW THE 'SAFE' DRUG OF CHOICE FOR THE HIPPY GENERATION

In 1997, when this paper called for decriminalisation, 1,600
people were being treated for cannabis addiction. Today, the number is
22,000. Jonathan Owen reports on a mental health timebomb.

Lucy Farmer was 14 when she first tried cannabis. It was easy to get.
Most of her friends had access to supplies where she was growing up in
Buckinghamshire . She never even had to pay for it at first.

"At first, it didn't really seem a problem," she said yesterday. "But
you get paranoid and lethargic and are not motivated to do anything at
all. There was so much of it around."

Then came the downside. "The paranoia made me react to my parents in
an aggressive way and we had huge rows. You think everyone's talking
about you, laughing at you, things like that. You feel so negative,
and are in a downward spiral.

"There were times when I'd wake up in the morning and not be able to
go to school. You just don't see the point and nothing is important to
you. Your memory is mushed and your brain will not function."

Yet Lucy was not smoking the traditional cannabis beloved and
introduced en masse by Britain's Sixties youth. It was skunk - a form
of cannabis so powerful that experts are warning it can be 25 times
more powerful than the cannabis used by previous generations. Growing
new strains of cannabis under ultra-violet lights, dealers have been
able to intensify the quantity of the chemical tetrahydrocannabidinol
(THC) - a psycho-active compound that disrupts brain activity and
distorts sensory perceptions. In short, the part that gets you high.
But feelings of euphoria and relaxation can be soured by paranoia and
memory loss. Significantly, teenagers whose brains are still
developing are more sensitive to the sudden rush of THC into the brain.

Today record numbers of young people are in treatment programmes for
skunk abuse and hospital admissions due to the drug are at their
highest ever.

An increase in the strength of the drug and widespread use among
Britain's teenagers has the potential to be a disaster, according to
experts, who say that the young are at most risk of developing
psychosis and schizophrenia.

A boom in the amount of super-strength cannabis being used by the
estimated one and a half million Britons who smoke it each year has
been mirrored by a massive rise in people suffering from mental health
problems because of it. Figures from the NHS National Treatment Agency
show that more than 22,000 cannabis users are in drug treatment
programmes - almost half of whom are under 18. Compare that to
Department of Health figures showing 1,660 cannabis users entering
treatment programmes in the six months ending March 1997. In addition,
the overall proportion of cannabis users of the total who are in
treatment for drug problems has shot up from 6 per cent to 12 per cent
over the past decade.

The number of people having to go to NHS hospitals suffering from
cannabis-related mental and behavioural disorders has also risen
sharply in last five years - from 581 in 2001 to almost 1,000 last
year.

The scale of the problem has prompted calls by doctors, politicians
and addicts for a rethink on the way we view cannabis, after a
succession of reports have stated that it is less harmful than alcohol
and tobacco. A new independent UK drug policy commission, chaired by
Dame Ruth Runciman is being launched next month, and will call for a
total rethink of the government's approach.

"Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really
is," says Professor Neil McKeganey, from Glasgow University's Centre
for Drug Misuse Research. "I think we are faced with a generation
blighted by the effects of cannabis use."

A cannabis joint today may contain 10 to 20 times more THC than the
equivalent joint in the 1970s. A decade ago only 11 per cent of
cannabis sold in the UK was grown here but now the figure has passed
60 per cent. And while the strength has increased, the price has
dropped. Cannabis now sells for UKP43 per ounce on average, a big drop
from the 1994 average price of UKP120 per ounce.

Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry
in London, says that one-quarter of people are particularly at risk,
having a five times higher risk of psychosis if they smoke cannabis.
The drug is known to increase the production of dopamine in the brain,
an excess of which produces the hallucinations characteristic of
schizophrenia.

"The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using
cannabis eight to 10 years ago," he says. "But the people now starting
are starting on skunk. The number of people taking cannabis may not be
rising but what people are taking is much more powerful - so there is
a question of whether a few years on we may see more people getting
ill as a consequence of that. We'll just have to wait and see."

Research to be published in this week's Lancet will show how cannabis
is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy. Experts analysed 20 substances
for addictiveness, social harm and physical damage. The results, which
will show many illegal drugs being less harmful than alcohol and
tobacco, will increase the pressure on the Home Office to reform the
existing ABC system of classification.

This comes just months after Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN's
anti-drugs office, said: "The harmful characteristics of cannabis are
no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as
cocaine and heroin."

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry are looking at the
relationship between the active ingredients of cannabis and whether it
causes psychosis by increasing dopamine levels in the brain. Fifteen
patients are involved in the study, where they are given the drug and
then have their brains scanned. Initial findings show that those given
THC show higher levels of brain dopamine than those who have a placebo.

But others argue that the evidence for cannabis's damaging effects
shows an association between the drug and psychosis, but not that one
is the cause of the other. The more likely explanation for the link,
they claim, is that people who are in the early stages of mental
illness may turn to drugs including cannabis as a form of
self-medication. Michael Linnell, the director of communications for
the drugs charity Lifeline, argues: "No drug use is completely safe
and yet despite the anti-cannabis propaganda on the telly and the
distortion of the truth in the press, cannabis is and remains by far
the safest drug on the planet."

In January 2004, when David Blunkett was Home Secretary, cannabis was
downgraded from class B to class C, meaning that possession of small
quantities of the drug was no longer an arrestable offence. The
decision was taken on the recommendation of the Advisory Council on
the Misuse of Drugs.

But last month Superintendent Leroy Logan, the deputy borough
commander in Hackney, east London, said reclassification of the drug
had led to "extensive and expansive" use among youngsters, increasing
mental health problems and triggering a "paranoid mistrust" of the
police and anyone in authority.

A "positive arrest policy" in central Brixton has resulted in hundreds
of arrests since December 2005, and police claim to have seen a 35 per
cent reduction in the crime rate in the area. But one chief inspector,
who spoke under condition of anonymity, admits that they are
struggling to control the problem. "There's still a widespread public
misconception that cannabis is legal now and it makes our life very
difficult. Skunk is a dangerous drug. This is a huge social problem
and we're like the doctors treating the symptoms."

Justin Smith, from Brixton, was 13 when he tried skunk for the first
time. He ended up skipping school and stealing to fund his UKP70-a-week
habit, "I was just lying around in my house, just going out to find
ways to get the money to smoke skunk. I used to steal to fund my use
and this went on for a year and a half."

Now 19, Justin remembers how he became ill after chain smoking joints:
"I'd been smoking so much that I threw up, had a terrible headache and
lay paralysed for hours until I felt better. Sometimes I'd feel
paranoid and keep looking around and thinking people were following
me. Every day you think people are talking about you and are against
you. I've seen people that have suffered on it talking to themselves
out in the street like they are mad - laughing to themselves and
everything."

He was helped to kick his habit by counsellors at a local project run
by the charity Turning Point and is now on a business studies course.
"I stopped a year ago. It was hard because it is addictive, but not
like a cocaine addiction - it's more of a mental addiction."

Concern over the dangers of skunk has grown following a spate of
murders and brutal assaults in recent years where cannabis psychosis
has been cited as a factor. The latest example came last week, when a
court heard how an addiction to skunk had exacerbated feelings of
extreme paranoia that resulted in Thomas Palmer, an 18-year-old from
Wokingham, Berkshire, stabbing two friends to death.

Mental health campaigners are now calling for action. Marjorie
Wallace, the chief executive of the charity Sane, said: "Every day
there is new evidence of the links between cannabis use and serious
mental illness. A recent study showed that eight out of 10 of those
experiencing first-episode psychiatric disorders were heavy users of
the drug, another that they were four times more likely to develop
schizophrenia. We need to give clear direction to young people and
their families, to teachers and the police, that the drug is illegal
and proven to be dangerous to a significant number of people."

But Richard Kramer, the director of policy at Turning Point, says
cannabis is just one of the factors that can exacerbate mental health
problems in vulnerable people. "We need clear, targeted education and
prevention campaigns tailored to the most vulnerable groups,
particularly those vulnerable to mental ill health and those who work
with them. It is through such evidence-driven public health responses
that we can best tackle the harms associated with cannabis."

Now 18 and studying for her A levels, Lucy has been seeing a
counsellor from the drugs charity Addaction since she was 16. She says
that many of her peers are complacent about cannabis. She warns:
"People just don't see it as a problem, but it catches up on you. The
truth is - you don't realise until it's too late."

[sidebar]

CANNABIS TIMELINE

From a Hindu sacred text to the 'IoS' campaign:

1200-800BC: Cannabis is mentioned in Hindu text Atharvaveda as one of
the sacred plants of India.

430BC: Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreational use of
cannabis by the Scythians.

AD1378: The Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues edict against the
eating of hashish.

1798: Napoleon discovers the habitual hashish use among Egyptians and
bans it. Returning soldiers bring the tradition home with them.

1830s: Queen Victoria is prescribed cannabis by her doctor to relieve
period pain.

1928: Cannabis made illegal in the UK.

1968: The Wootton report into cannabis concludes: "There is no
evidence that this activity is... producing in otherwise normal people
conditions of dependence or psychosis requiring medical treatment."

1971: Cannabis classified as a class B drug: illegal to grow, produce,
possess or supply it.

1997: Independent on Sunday launches a campaign for its
decriminalisation.

1998: 16,000 march in London in support of IoS campaign. House of
Lords recommends that doctors be allowed to prescribe the drug.

2001: The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) says: "The
mental health effects of cannabis are real and significant."

2004: Cannabis is reclassified from a class B to a class C drug.
Possession illegal, but not an arrestable offence.

2005: ACMD asked to re-examine scientific evidence linking cannabis
use in at-risk adolescents to mental health problems.

[sidebar]

THE 'IOS' TEST

From cannabis to skunk: facts and figures behind the spread of a
class C drug

Cannabis is stronger than ever, with Britain swamped with home-grown
skunk. The Forensic Science Service says that in the early Nineties
cannabis would contain around 1 per cent tetrahydrocannabidinol (THC),
the mind-altering compound, but can now have up to 25 per cent.

Tests on home-grown skunk acquired on the streets of London on Friday
showed that one sample had a 9 per cent level of THC. That's low by
today's standards but still double the strength of cannabis resin.

60+ per cent of cannabis consumed in Britain is home-grown

21 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds have taken cannabis in the past
year

25,000 schizophrenics could have avoided the illness if they had not
used cannabis

12 per cent of children aged 11-15 have taken cannabis

9 million+ Britons aged 16-59 have used cannabis

UKP1billion+ is spent on the drug each year

9,600 under-18s are in treatment for cannabis problems