‘COOL’ CANNABIS CAN LEAD TO SCHIZOPHRENIA

CHECK with any cool group of youngsters busy blowing rings of smoke at any of the snazzy hangouts around you, and chances are that they will tell you of their experiments with marijuana. If you term it a drug, they will be ready to come to its defence, calling it ‘just the done thing’.

Marijuana, hash, grass, weed, charas, ganja…. They are all forms of cannabis, officially termed a soft drug. Unofficially, as most of its users in the age-group 15-35 will tell you, it is the safest drug, actually less harmful than alcohol and smoking. Thanks to this myth, the usage of cannabis in its various forms has been increasing, in particular among youngsters who are also habitual smokers. However, the comfortable notion of the ‘safety’ of this soft drug was punctured recently when the journal Lancet published a comprehensive study proving that cannabis usage increases the risk of schizophrenia by 40 per cent, as compared to non-users. And not only are long-term users at risk, for even one-time usage ups the risk of getting the debilitating disease. This study takes away the ‘cool’, ‘hip’ and ‘harmless’ tags of cannabis and replaces them with ‘psychosis’, ‘delusions’ and ‘amotivation’. The study says that 14 per cent of schizophrenic patients would not have the disease today, if they had not been cannabis users when aged between 15-34.

For the medical community, the study has come as no surprise. Dr Sameer Malhotra, Delhi-based psychiatrist and psychotherapist with special interest in drug de-addiction, says, “This connection between cannabis usage and schizophrenia has been researched for long. The negative symptoms in schizophrenia are similar to those seen in long-term cannabis users. Also, many schizophrenia patients have a history of cannabis use.”

Cannabis is cool, it’s just another smoke…
Most 20-somethings pooh-pooh the facts, or they simply don’t know them to begin with. “A number of my friends who start with cigarettes go on to try cannabis as well, it’s sort of natural, isn’t it?” says Akshay, a college student who himself moved on to trying cannabis this way. His informal take is seconded by Dr Malhotra. “Approximately onethird of people who smoke go on to experiment with cannabis”, he tells us.

“I started smoking MJ (marijuana, for the uninitiated) in my college canteen, before that I only used to smoke,” says 23-year-old Bhaskar, a budding rock musician, “That’s where we used to make music, me and our college band. All my seniors in the band used to do grass or MJ and said music sounded ‘real’ after smoking it. That’s when I did it too, and the calm that comes over you cannot be described. The notes of music actually become more acute, more clear. I still do it once in a while. But I have moved on to hard drugs.”

That’s no surprise, since cannabis is also considered to be a ‘gateway drug’, as its abusers later dabble with chemical and other hard drugs. “But I don’t hold cannabis responsible for my experiments with hard drugs. In fact the out-of-body experiences that I have enjoyed after doing cannabis are unbelievable. You can hear things others around you can’t and your sense of touch is heightened. All my friends have reported the same kind of high,” says 22-year-old management student Anuprit Sinha. We leave her worried after we reveal that her ‘high’ is similar to symptoms of schizophrenia.

…but your mind could go up in smoke too
Doctors dismiss the perception that cannabis is safer than alcohol. Says psychiatrist Samir Parikh, “Cannabis is as unsafe as any other habit-forming drug. It causes psychological dependence, leads to chemical changes in the users’ brain, can cause human errors like outbursts and accidents and affects memory and intelligence.” For longterm users, the harm goes beyond this. “Cannabis gets deposited in our body’s fatty issue. Its effects are very similar to that of schizophrenia — the user is in a state of acute intoxication, he/she tends to lose motivation, suffers from delusions and mood swings, hallucinates and loses touch with reality,” explains Malhotra. Experts are unanimous that this ‘cool’ drug can leave its users scarred in the long term and they find it difficult to adjust to their surroundings.

The global debate
In the UK, one in five youngsters report using cannabis at least once a week, some of them being heavy users. The British government has been deliberating over reclassifying cannabis as a Category B drug. In that category, possession of cannabis will lead to a jail sentence. On the other side of the legal spectrum is the Netherlands, where coffee shops are allowed to sell cannabis for personal use. The Dutch drug policy is based on the general principle of self-determination in matters of the body. In other words, it is not illegal to hurt yourself. Also, because of lenient laws, the percentage of people seeking voluntary help for their problems with cannabis use has increased. British policy makers are also forwarding this example to keep cannabis away from becoming illegal. Prof Robin Murray of Britain’s Institute of Psychiatry, an expert on cannabisinduced psychosis, has said, “Politicians tend to think reclassification is important. It isn’t. Fourteen-year-olds smoking cannabis have no idea of the difference between B and C. It’s already illegal for them anyway. What is needed is education about the risks.”

FORMS OF CANNABIS
Marijuana, Mary-Jane, MJ, Hemp, weed, grass, ganja are dried leaves of the cannabis sativa plant that are smoked. Bhang is a beverage prepared by grinding cannabis leaves in milk and boiling with spices and other ingredients. Can be taken as sweets, pakorasetc.

Hashishor charas is a concentrated resin composed of glandular trichomes and vegetative debris that has been physically extracted, usually by rubbing. It is in higher concentration than cannabis, so the effect is stronger. It is smoked or inhaled after being vapourised.

Hash oil: It is commonly smoked using hot metal blades or plates, inhaled using specially designed vaporizers, or smoked from a bed of ashes. It is considerably more potent than cannabis.