Cannabis Study – ITV News 27/7/2007

It would seem that we are slipping back 70 years in attitudes towards cannabis use. The UK newspapers are full of headlines just like those in the 1936 anti cannabis film ‘REFFER MADNESS’ — it would be funny but for the uneducated and ignorant and hysterical knee-jerk reaction to this wonderful herb. I was a psychiatric nurse working on an addiction unit and a general admissions ward for 22 years. Not once in that time did I meet or treat a patient who had ‘gone mad’ or become schizophrenic by using cannabis — I did meet a number of schizophrenic and other psychotic patients, all of whom said that they did not use cannabis as it made them feel worse. All psychiatrists that I worked for agreed that cannabis would compound symptoms and cause psychotic episodes in patients with a major psychotic illness — and they all agreed that cannabis was NOT the cause of their illness. They all also agreed that cannabis is a relatively harmless substance for those who did not have a history of psychotic illness. The numbers of schizophrenic patients, per head of population HAS NOT RISEN in the last 30 years. The numbers of schizophrenic patients in countries such as Holland, where cannabis laws are relaxed, is no higher than in countries where the laws are strict, such as France — these topographical figures prove beyond a doubt that cannabis, while making an existing and sometimes latent psychotic illnesses worse, it is not and has never been the CAUSE of schizophrenia and other …