Cannabis: Too much, too young? 26 March 2005 New ScientistGraham Lawton

It is known that taking a lot of cannabis over a short period can cause psychotic symptoms, but the long term effects are still hotly debated

AT THE end of Jim van Os's street in the pleasant Dutch city of Maastricht there is a coffee shop. As with many such establishments in the Netherlands, "coffee shop" is something of a euphemism: most of its customers go there not to drink coffee but to buy and smoke dope. Van Os isn't too keen on the place. He doesn't like the shady characters it attracts. He doesn't like the fact that his children have to walk past it. And most of all he doesn't like that fact that the place breaks the law and sells marijuana to under-18s. Van Os's fears are rooted in more than the usual parental angst. He is a psychiatrist at the University of Maastricht who investigates the effect of marijuana on people's brains - particularly adolescents' brains. And the findings of his research make him worry about the effects of all this dope 1

Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened

23:01 21 November 2002 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young

The link between regular cannabis use and later depression and schizophrenia has been significantly strengthened by three new studies.

The studies provide "little support" for an alternative explanation - that people with mental illnesses self-medicate with marijuana - according to Joseph Rey and Christopher Tennant of the University of Sydney, who have written an editorial on the papers in the British Medical Journal.

One of the key conclusions of the research is that people who start smoking cannabis as adolescents are at the greatest risk of later developing mental health problems. Another team calculates that eliminating cannabis use in the UK population could reduce cases of schizophrenia by 13 per cent.

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Cannabis use linked to psychotic experiences04 December 2004 From New Scientist

IS CANNABIS use relatively harmless, or can it cause symptoms such as hearing voices and paranoia? After studying more than 2000 users and non-users aged between 14 and 24, Jim van Los of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands concludes that it can.

"There is considerable harm associated with cannabis," van Los claims. "It is not safer than alcohol or other drugs." After four years, 21 per cent of cannabis users in his sample had psychotic symptoms, compared with 15 per cent of non-users. The more often people used cannabis, the stronger the effect.

The risk appears greatest for those with a predisposition to psychosis. In people with mild signs of psychosis at the start of the study, 51 per cent of

users developed symptoms compared with 26 per cent of non-users.5 9

Cannabis drugs pass testing 'milestone'13:42 05 November 2002 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young Cannabis-based drugs could be prescribed in the UK as early as 2003, following successful final-stage trials in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Compared with standard treatments alone, the drugs significantly improved symptoms of MS and reduced pain caused by other types of nerve damage, GW Pharmaceuticals has announced. The company is the sole UK holder of a licence to cultivate and supply cannabis for medical research. "These results represent a milestone in the pharmaceutical development of cannabis-based medicines," says Geoffrey Guy, GW's executive chairman. "Subject to regulatory approval, we are now on track to deliver our first prescription medicine to the UK market next year."

Cannabis truly helps multiple sclerosis sufferers16:37 10 September 2004 NewScientist.com news serviceAnna Gosline, Exeter Cannabis may loosen the stiff and spastic muscles of multiple sclerosis sufferers, and not just their minds, a follow-up study has found. The results contradict findings from the first phase of the study, where improvements seemed to be largely due to "good moods".

“There does seem to be evidence of some benefit from cannabis in the longer term that we didn’t anticipate in the short term study,” says John Zajicek, at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, UK, and one of the research team.

In 2003, Zajicek and his colleagues published results on the largest study to date of cannabinoids and MS. The trial included 630 advanced-stage MS patients who took either cannabinoid compounds or a placebo for 15 weeks.

Compared with those on placebos, patients who received active compounds said they both felt less pain and less muscle spasticity – the spasms characteristic of this neurodegenerative disease.4

Marijuana use in pregnancy damages kids' learning

12:26 25 March 2003 NewScientist.com news service Shaoni Bhattacharya Children born to mothers who use marijuana during pregnancy may suffer a host of lasting mental defects, suggests a new study in rats. Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug among women of reproductive age.

The offspring of pregnant rats given a low dose of cannabinoid were found to perform poorly in learning tests throughout their lives, compared to rats that were not exposed.

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Cannabis may double mental illnesses

08:57am 1st March 2005 Smoking cannabis almost doubles the risk of suffering mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, according a new report.

The drug causes chemical changes in the brain which make users more likely to experience paranoia, delusions and a loss of touch with reality, it is claimed.

Heavy smokers and people prone to mental illness are most at

risk.

Daily Mail 1 March 2005

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Cannabis is legal and I like it”

17 year old student Frank Nicholls was today fined £150 at Sometown Magistrates Court for possession of cannabis with intent to sell. Frank claimed that his habit of smoking up to five joints a day had no harmful effects on his health and made him calmer. The arresting officer told magistrates that Nicholls has a substantial amount of cannabis resin on him when he was arrested for urinating against a garden fence on Saturday night. A spokesman for the police force said “Although cannabis has been reclassified, it is still illegal to use, possess, supply or produce it.  You could still face imprisonment and a fine if you are convicted”.