Cannabis - A Warning to the Curious

I thought I would post, in one omnibus account, all the recent accounts by cannabis users (and in one case by the wife of a cannabis user) of their experiences with this dishonestly-marketed drug, which is neither safe nor ‘soft’.
The combined impact of them seems to me to be rather powerful.  I repeat that in all cases I have verified the bona fides of the person involved, though for obvious reasons,  each prefers to stay anonymous.

1.Cannabis - A (former) User Writes

The writer of the words that I reproduce below recently e-mailed them to me.  I have since spoken to him ( he is 33, by the way) and have his permission to reproduce what he says here. I offer them without further comment, except to say that he is fairly sure that his memory and some other faculties have suffered permanently as a result of his now-abandoned use of cannabis. He is, in what he says, too kind to me, but the general message is so valuable that I felt it best to reproduce it as written.  :
‘I would like to offer a great deal of thanks for continuing to highlight the dangers of cannabis use. As someone who smoked the drug regularly for a period of time in my early twenties, I know, from first-hand experience, the debilitating effect it can have on the user's mind. I have no doubt that for a number of people, however small a percentage, cannabis can trigger serious mental health problems.
‘Before ever having taken the drug, I was a happy, smiling, extroverted young person with lots of friends and a positive outlook on life.  Once I started to smoke the awful stuff, that all changed - and it changed very rapidly. 
Paranoia, depression, panic attacks - This is how my life ended up. Most disturbingly was the way my mind began to lose touch with reality. I began to suffer from delusional ideas and would hear voices in my head.  Some of the things I imagined to be real, seem completely absurd to me now. For example, I used to think that songs I listened to were coded messages.  I used to think that God was trying to communicate with me via car licence plates. I believed I could speak telepathically with people and had the ability to read their thoughts and implant my thoughts inside their mind.
‘Eventually I ended up losing my job, I almost destroyed my relationship with my family and I was almost driven to suicide. With the help and support of a close relative, whom I cherish dearly, I eventually stopped.  And when I stopped, the voices stopped, the paranoia stopped, the feelings of despair and sadness all stopped and my mind returned to how it was before I ever took the ghastly stuff.
‘I have been married for the past five years and have a beautiful daughter who has just started school.  I am in full time employment and also do voluntary work using my talents as an artist.  Had I still been smoking cannabis, I would have none of these things, but rather I would have ended up in prison, in some sort of mental health unit or worse than that as I am sure you can imagine.’
Note to webcrawlers: "Peter Hitchens reproduces a letter from a former cannabis user, highlighting the fact that this drug is anything but safe, and far from soft"

 2.How do you Define Mental Illness? Another (former) cannabis user writes

Peter Hitchens says: "Imagine what would have happened if fashionable opinion, professors,  rock stars, politicians and media figures had all lined up to defend tobacco against the growing evidence that cigarettes kill, as they now defend cannabis. My guess is that a lot more people would now be dead or ill, who are now alive and well".
Peter Hitchens says :"Yet again, some annoying wiseacre (ignoring what I have many times said on this very subject) brays that the figures on 'Psychosis' or 'Schizophrenia' haven't risen dramatically despite the undoubted increasing use of cannabis."
Peter Hitchens retorts: "As I have many times explained, mental illness is not exactly or objectively defined.  I try not to use the terms 'psychosis' and 'schizophrenia' because I am not sure what they mean or how they can be precisely defined. What's more, our government, which is trying hard to avoid the huge costs of proper mental health care, has a great interest in minimising it. Further, databases used to track such things tend to rely on general practitioners. But the sort of people whose lives are destroyed by drugs tend not to register with GPs."
Peter Hitchens asks:"Do the mental illness figures record the unknown number of young men who were doing well at school until they began smoking dope and fell to the bottom of the class? Is that 'mental illness'? I'd say yes, and I'd say the same about many other 'minor' tragedies which overtake the foolish dupes of propaganda and advertising who take this drug in the belief it is harmless."
And Peter Hitchens adds: "The recent survey on IQ and cannabis is clearly suggestive of a connectiion between cannabis use in the teens, and loss of IQ. It cannot possibly be advanced as evidence that use of the drug by older people is 'safe' - only that no comparably clear evidence of its dangers has yet been produced." I was shocked that a scientist should have been quoted as saying that it was 'safe' for any age . It was an unscientific statement.
I reproduce here another testimony from a former user of cannabis, which I think is relevant to the mental health question :
'After reading the article on your blog today, I feel more confident about sharing my experiences. I can relate entirely to the story told by the former cannabis user. I am only 21, but already feel that it has had a negative impact on me - something which suggests to me that harm can be caused by the drug even with moderate to little use. I went to university in 2009, and a number of my friends who I made there would often smoke it. In the course of around 8 months, I used it a number of times. By the time second year arrived, I suffered from extreme anxiety in almost any social situation, including lecture theatres, concerts and parties, and was filled with dread whenever I thought about the future. In the end I used beta-blockers for a year to control the anxiety, despite my doctor's suggestion that I use antidepressants (that's an issue for another time). Thankfully I realised early that there could be a relationship between the drug and my mental wellbeing, and as such have not smoked it since the summer of 2010. The year that followed was undoubtedly the worst of my life, due to the extreme anxiety and unhappiness which I was experiencing
 
'I regained the confidence which I had lost. However, I still feel that part of my life (albeit small) was wasted due to using the drug. There were other complicated issues in my life which could also have contributed to the anxiety, but I can trace my first panic attack back to using cannabis. I strongly believe that things could have been different had I not used it.
 
'Something which has become apparent to me as my experience with the drug changed is the way in which arguments are made to suit ones own ends.. During my first year I could easily have been described as a conventional liberal, as I strongly believed there was a war on drugs and that cannabis would not inflict any mental damage - it was all correlation, not causation. However as my mental wellbeing began to suffer I started to reconsider my views. As I began to discuss this with friends who did use cannabis, I was met with opprobrium for even suggesting that it could cause mental damage or that there was in fact no attempt to control drug use.
 
'This means I share your belief that advocates of legalisation are "selfish." My experience has taught me that much. Many have not yet suffered the negative consequences of the drug, and even of those who have do not think that there is a relationship between usage and mental health. Additionally, having been a student for the past three years I can easily say I have never met anyone, student or otherwise, who seriously worries that they will be penalized for using cannabis. The situation in which they can smoke it without any remonstrance from the police or society already exists, they just haven't realised it yet because it is still technically "illegal." Your writing on the subject has provided an armoury of well reasoned arguments and facts to combat conventional wisdom on this subject. I can imagine you must find it fairly dispiriting to put up with simplistic attacks from the drug lobby for arguing your beliefs, but there is no doubt a large number of people who share your sentiments - they just aren't as noisy as the advocates of legalization.'
 
'I have found your writings on the subject helpful, given the tide I feel I am swimming against, particularly at university where use of the drug is so common and it is rarer to refuse to smoke it than use it. I have realised earlier than some the damage it can do, and as such my opinions on it have changed entirely. I look forward to your book on the subject.'
NB: I have spoken directly to the author of this letter, and verified his bona fides.

3.Cannabis - A User's Wife Writes

 The more I write about the dangers of cannabis, the more people write to me to describe their own experiences. The following, rather harrowing account was sent to me today. I am very moved by the person’s generosity in sharing this deeply upsetting experience with a wider audience, in the hope that it may help others avoid the distress that she is undergoing. I don’t, by the way, agree with her comparison with alcohol, but it is her opinion and it would be wrong of me to cut it out. ‘My husband was sectioned 3 weeks ago - a kind intelligent man , who I don’t recognise. He was a heavy smoker of cannabis and claimed it relaxed him and made him more open to new ideas. However,  the last few weeks he became more and more paranoid and confused, some days holding it together well and other days going to pieces -for example :Turning all the electrics off; convinced someone had stolen all the words off his CDs; microphones were all over the house.
 ‘The problem is he wasn't a danger to himself or anyone else but he was and is vulnerable. For example, he was walking around sniffing people trying to take their temperatures to see if they were lying (about what I don’t know).
‘I think it was terrifying for him, and more so for us to try and take care of him. Finally we got in touch with a crisis team to come and help him but by then he was very delusional. The team called a social worker who arranged for him to be sectioned. I’m sure you know what this involves .
‘On that day the house was stormed by 16 policemen as my husband had tried to jump out of a second floor window. He is in his third week in hospital and at present not responding to medication. He is very aggressive at times and then so confused, like a little boy trying to do joined up writing or long division, if you know what I mean .
‘I have never smoked and had no feelings really one way or another about it , but this has been a massive learning curve for me - meeting families whose relatives are sectioned for the same reasons as my husband ; the sadness and guilt you feel when you see a loved one in this state ....it's horrible. He gave all his clothes , washbag , books cigarettes etc away to other patients or put them in the bin as he thinks they are contaminated. ‘And me? ‘Well I guess I will do my best to see this through and try to understand what has happened. I go every day to see him and mostly he is sedated, and when not is very abusive all of which Is very upsetting . In conclusion I think cannabis is like alcohol ......some people can just have that glass or 2 of wine or that joint and some people can’t.
 ‘He was moved from a section 2 today to a section 3 which could mean up to 6 months in Hospital .....I hope not for his and my sake. I didn't go to see him today as the nurse suggested having a little time to myself, eat some proper food ,have a nice bath, go to the hairdresser etc, things I haven’ t done for nearly a month.
‘It's not only the people who get ill from alcohol or cannabis, but the families and friends around them that suffer too’ .
Note: I have spoken to the writer, and verified her bona fides. She says that she now believes her husband, who had been smoking cannabis for about ten years, had been showing symptoms for some time, of sudden mood swings, turning the radio volume up high , experiencing a heightened sense of smell, worrying about what people in the street or the shops were saying (he wrongly thought they were talking about him). But at the time she put them down to the normal stress of life.

4.The Comment Warriors are Scared

Very soon after the experiences of a cannabis smoker's wife, harrowing and distressing, were posted here, the comments began to fly in, decrying it.
Why? What had I, or the author of the account, said? Neither she nor I made any specific claim. There was no need, actually. Any intelligent, dispassionate person can see the following logic.
A person, kind , hardworking and happy, uses a powerful mind-altering drug over a period of years.
He develops some strange symptoms. Then the events described by his wife take place. She happens to be the person closest to him, who knows him best (much as Henry Cockburn's parents knew him, and know him best).
 
She, reading of the experiences of others, makes a connection between the two events.
But that is all. Neither she nor I make any specific claim. Yet here come the 'Comment Warriors' in their usual swarms (people who in most cases never comment here on any other subject) to screech that there is no evidence of a connection between cannabis and a 'psychosis' I have not alleged ( and which is in any case a word I do not use because I have no idea what it means).
 
Evidence? Who said anything about evidence? What this is , is an indication, which any sensible person would take as a warning, and as a reason to know a good deal more *before* taking the existing controls off this already illegal drug.  Fundamentally, it's a reason to disbelieve the slick advertsising of this substance as 'soft' and 'safe'. I don't believe these Comment Warriors would accept anything as evidence that cannabis is dangerous. In this they are like the pathetic remainder of the tobacco lobby, who still argue that cigarettes don't cause cancer. Pleasure trumps thought.
My informant may be wrong about there being a connection between her husband's cannabis smoking and his current state (though I'll be surprised if I don't get other similar testimonies as a result, and though I have now had so many 'anecdotal' communications of this kind, several in private, along astonishingly similar lines that only the most obdurate dogmatist could pretend there was nothing at all to worry about).
 
But what these rapid and vituperative commenters hate (Are they organised? Was Luther a Protestant? Do mice have tails?)  is the widespread display and broadcast of truthful accounts which cast doubt on their selfish complacency.
 
They know in their hearts that their pleasure is damaging and dangerous, to themselves and to others. Many of them, I would guess, have had quarrels with families and with those close to them over their habit, in which relatives have pleaded with them to stop behaving as they do. They have ignored those pleas, and are guilty about it.
The more intelligent of them may also understand that their demands for a relaxed regime endanger young people who may, as a result, ruin their lives. The stupider ones probably don't see beyond the confines of their basements and attics.
But in both cases their anger is the genuine, deep, honest rage of the pleasure-seeker who sees his pleasure threatened.
Like all guilty people, they get angry when any outsider draws attention to the reasons for their guilt. Let them. Their anger is the anger of the toddler denied his chocolate. My anger is the anger of the disinterested person fighting to warn the innocent against an avoidable danger because it is his plain duty to do so, come wind, come weather. The two do not compare, in power or in purpose. Let them rage away. They don't scare me. They encourage me.

5. How many Anecdotes make an Anti-Dope Antidote? Another former cannabis user writes

Peter Hitchens writes : "Cannabis Comment Warriors, gird up your loins once more. Another former cannabis user has written to me to share his experience of this dangerous drug, misleadingly promoted as 'soft' and harmless.
"Perhaps after a while they will begin to see that these so-called 'anecdotes' have a common theme that might be worth investigating. Then again, perhaps the Comment Warriors will just get angry at having their complacency punctured by facts."
Here it is. Another 'anecdote'
A former cannabis user writes :' Since in your blog you have expressed gratitude to former cannabis users, or the kin of cannabis users who have reached out to share their experiences, I am moved to share my story with you.
'I smoked cannabis - the strong variety - intensely in my early teens. I started very early, even relative to my friends who were early users of drugs, and I consumed heavily. I remember being encouraged into smoking for a variety of factors: relaxed parents naive about the strength of new strains of the drug, a cool older sibling, hanging out with an alternative group of people, etc. I also clearly remember watching TV as a 13-year-old and seeing the downgrading of cannabis in the drug classifications on the news, and taking this as carte blanche.
'Almost every aspect of my life suffered. In terms of my emotional and social life, a lot changed - I went from popular, social, outgoing and highly confident, to isolated, introverted, emotionally fragile, self-doubting and paranoid. My intellectual faculties had also certainly been dulled - my wits, imagination and conversation had had the edge taken off them. With the scenery collapsing around me, I had the good sense to realise that it was cannabis that was a major cause of my difficulties and I rapidly curbed my consumption and within a few months kicked it completely.
'The final straw was the seriously unpleasant experience of getting arrested for possession - the first piece of negative conditioning from society I had received, and remain extremely grateful for, notwithstanding the lasting stain on my record.  It only happened because I deliberately smoked cannabis in a very public place.
'Almost a decade later, I strongly suspect that my emotional and intellectual life is still hampered to some degree, though, thankfully, tolerably so. Scarcely a day passes where I do not feel some regret/anger about this aspect of my young life.
'The 'comment warriors' you refer to would presumably allege that my story, and others like them, are anecdotal and at best show correlation not causation between cannabis consumption and mental issues. I personally have almost no doubt that cannabis was a major cause of my difficulties. Why do the comment warriors consider this irrelevant? Introspection would clearly be of no value if I was concerned with, say, the chemical composition of my stomach acids, or the structure of my DNA. But the subject of concern here is *my mental life*: why aren't *my*insights, thoughts and feelings highly relevant when the subject is *me*?
'Of course such feelings don't fully verify that cannabis was the cause of my troubles - my thoughts and feelings would need to be anchored by something external to me - but they are surely at least part of the story... The second reason, again presumably to be dismissed as 'unscientific', is what might be called the phenomenology of cannabis consumption, the what-it-is-like to be high: it is extremely powerful to the point of hallucinogenic when consumed in high enough doses. It would be very surprising if altering your mind to this degree and extent didn't have some serious consequences...
'Thank you for speaking out on this issue. It would be great if more people understood the risks involved, especially young people who are possibly too green to make a serious decision for themselves and are being exposed to wrong advice.'