According to Barbara Kay writing for the National Post in Canada, ""The link between cannabis and psychosis is quite clear now; it wasn't 10 years ago."

She goes on to make quite a strong point regarding the National Post and its stance on cannabis, positively demanding that "The verdict on the new marijuana is in, and it's "guilty." I would therefore respectfully ask the Post to reconsider its editorial stance on the legalization of "pot," clearly a superannuated description of cannabis today, and in future commentary on this issue, so critical to our youth's health, exercise a little more intellectual — ahem — sobriety."

Stern stuff indeed, but is she right? Is the weed of today causing an epidemic of mental health issues? Or is this just the latest scare story to accompany the much maligned cannabis plant?

If you read the daily papers in the UK there's absolutely no doubt, as the front pages scream; Mental illnesses soar as number of cannabis users increase - sundaymail.co.uk - May 18 2008

SOARING numbers of drug users are being treated in hospital for mental illness, according to figures published by the Scottish Government. The findings follow research suggesting cannabis can cause schizophrenia and depression.

Mary Scanlon, Scottish Tory health spokeswoman, said: "This rise leads to concern about the use of cannabis being a catalyst for mental illness and the use of illegal drugs as a form of self-medication of mental illness," but not everyone agrees.

Alistair Ramsay, chairman of Drugwise, said: "It has been known for some time that overuse of amphetamines and ecstasy directly affects the brain. Consequently, there will be people being treated for mental illness due to 'drug abuse'."

So with this in mind is it possible cannabis gets a bad rap as a result of use alongside other drugs? Its hard to say but according to award winning childrens author Julia Donaldson, its certainly guilty of playing a part in her sons suicide.

But was it directly responsible?

Hamish Donaldson was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder . A condition which causes extreme mood swings.

He was diagnosed after showing erratic behaviour at school and spending time with "some very bad company". He spent periods in a local psychiatric hospital before being admitted to Carstairs, a high security hospital in Lanarkshire.

Shortly after his grandmother died in 2003, he assaulted his father Malcolm while drunk and briefly went to prison.

A week after being released, he killed himself after a row with his girlfriend. He had been taking cocaine.

Julia Donaldson did not believe cannabis was directly responsible but was in no doubt that it worsened his decline.

The premature death of a person, and regardless of how they die, is a tragedy, but playing devils advocate for a moment its hard to find cannabis mentioned anywhere, apart from earlier in Hamish's life, and the fact he was a chronic alcohol user who would also use cocaine seems to have little to do with the sitaution if The Telegraph is to be believed? Which does cast some doubts on cannabis and the part it played in Hamish's suicide.

At a time like this, with so much confusion surrounding the greater cannabis debate its hard to know who to turn to for a balanced opinion. Which is so important when people are attempting to make informed decisions over experimenting with drugs.

Turning to the government for advice is 'Frankly', a no-brainer. People don't want to be told what to do. They have questions and they want answers. If they don't get those answers chances are they're going to experiment anyway and from that point forth passing a drug message? Any drug message, a task which is difficult enough already, gets a lot tougher.

To find my own answers I decided to take the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, or ACMD.

The ACMD is a gathering of pre-eminent experts from a variety of fields who deal with drug abuse issues on a daily basis, including Pharmacologists, Mental Health workers, Academics, Law Enforcement, Drug Charities, GP's, Forensic experts to name but a few.

In July 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked the ACMD to investigate cannabis, which had only recently been downgraded to a class C substance, in a bid to find out if government ought reclassify it back to a B substance, on the grounds of public health.

In May of 2008 their report was presented to the Home Secretary, so she may make an informed decision.

Their findings were interesting, not least of which, the findings in relation to cannabis and mental health.

8.8.1 In an Australian study, the relationship between cannabis consumption and the prevalence of schizophrenia was examined in cohorts of people born between 1940 and 1979. Despite a steep rise in the prevalence of cannabis use, and a corresponding decrease in the age of initiation of use, there was no evidence of a significant increase in the incidence of schizophrenia.

Furthermore, in the United Kingdom;

8.8.2 There is no UK national register of those for whom a diagnosis of schizophrenia has been made. At the request of the Council, Frisher and Crome examined the prevalence and annual incidence of diagnosed schizophrenia and psychoses among cohorts of over 900,000 patients attending 183 general practices in the UK between 1996 and 2005.

They observed that both the prevalence and annual incidence of schizophrenia and the prevalence of psychoses have decreased over the period of observation.

8.11 It is evident that the majority of young cannabis users do not develop psychotic illnesses. Those who do so must have one or more predisposing factors.

So clearly this "early warning & intervention" is something which needs to come from within the family unit. Those who know the young person best are in a better position to note differences in behaviour.

Long-term psychotic illness (including schizophrenia)
12.8 The evidence to support an association between the use of cannabis by young people and the development of a psychotic illness (including schizophrenia) is not entirely consistent. There is a significant increase in the risk of the development of a psychotic illness (including schizophrenia) in controlled observational studies, but this does not appear to have been accompanied by an increase in the incidence of psychotic illness or schizophrenia at a population level. This may reflect a weak and complex causal link, or some other factor(s) such as a common predisposition to schizophrenia and also to cannabis use. Miller and colleagues reported that individuals at high risk, because of a family history of schizophrenia, appeared to be susceptible to cannabis-related illnesses if they had a history of certain behavioural problems between the ages of 13 and 16 years.

Weakest Link 

12.9 On balance, the Council considers that the evidence points to a probable, but weak, causal link between psychotic illness and cannabis use. Whether such a causal link will become stronger with the wider use of higher potency cannabis products remains uncertain.

Minority

12.9.1 Only a minority of young people who use cannabis will develop a psychotic illness. Hickman and colleagues estimate that around 5,000 young men, or 20,000 young women, would need to be prevented from using cannabis to avoid one person developing schizophrenia.

Anxiety and depression
12.10 The Council remains unconvinced that there is a causal relationship between the use of cannabis and the development of any affective disorder.

So it would seem that, by the evidence of the United Kingdoms own council of advisors, the links between mental health issues and cannabis, whilst being very real, are not quite what the press would have us believe. And if there are doubts cast over the information we're receiving regarding cannabis psychosis, its a good chance there are similar flaws elsewhere in the information we receive from government.

The Gateway Theory for instance.

According to the ACMD;

Gateway theory
12.11 The Council does not consider the risks of progression to Class A drugs as a consequence of using cannabis to be substantial; and considers that such risks are likely to be less than those associated with the use of alcohol and tobacco.

"Less than those associated with the use of alcohol and tobacco"? Thats quite a turn up for the public health debate! How about crime?

12.13 The evidence available to the Council does not suggest that cannabis use is a substantial cause of acquisitive crime.
 
Anti-Social Behaviour?
12.14 Anti-social behaviour is an unlikely consequence of the known psychological effects of cannabis itself. There is, however, a clear perception among the public that cannabis is associated with anti-social behaviour. In the opinion of experts on the Council, anti-social behaviour is probably largely exacerbated by alcohol. It is therefore possible that the public regard smoking cannabis in the presence of others as, in itself, a form of anti-social behaviour.

All in all its hard to see the reasons why the Home Secretary would wish to use this document as a reason to reclassify cannabis.

According to the ACMD cannabis use has shown a drop of between 20% and 25% since it was declassified a class C drug. To ramp up enforcement activity now, on the back of a difficult to define "public health" drive is going to undo all of the work which has been carried out since 2003 and that cannot be allowed to happen.

Cannabis is showing a downward trend for the first time ever, and if its not broke, should we really be trying to "fix it"?

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