Forums › Drugs › Quitting, Rehab & Detox › UK : East : Record number of Norfolk’s youngsters seeking cannabis rehab treatment
From Norfolk’s Evening News 24…
Record number of youngsters seek help for cannabis problems
SARAH HALL
20 March 2007 09:27An increasing number of young people are suffering severe mental health problems as a result of smoking cannabis, new figures have revealed.
Statistics from the NHS National Treatment Agency show the number of young people in treatment almost doubled from 2005 to 2006.
In Norfolk, mental health agencies are seeing increasing numbers of people who have developed some form of mental illness through use of cannabis or who have exacerbated an existing problem by self-medicating with the drug.
Norwich Mind said people were taking the drug without considering the consequences and that if people were predisposed to a mental health problem, smoking cannabis would worsen their existing problems.
Sandra Flannigan, from the charity, said: “We are seeing more cases of people having mental health problems with a strong link to smoking cannabis.
“Its long-term use leads to paranoia, personality disorders and psychosis, but unfortunately it is part of young people’s culture today.”
Mrs Flannigan said a lot of schizophrenics smoked cannabis to try to alleviate some of their symptoms.
She said more than 70pc of people she refers for rehabilitation have some history of smoking cannabis.
“I don’t want to paint a picture that suggests all young people with mental health problems have a link with cannabis,” she said.
“But it is certainly a contributing factor. People are making themselves unwell but youngsters are not listening to what we are saying. It is a really big issue we are dealing with.”
Anne Louise Schofield, young people’s drug commissioning officer, at DAAT, Drug and Alcohol Action Team for Norwich, said:
“We know that the two main substances people under the age of 19 most misuse are alcohol and cannabis.
“Some of the people who smoke cannabis might not necessarily need treatment, but quite often they do need some one to talk to.”
Of the cases in which young people required treatment over the last 12 months, 36pc were due to cannabis, with 31pc because of alcohol, 16pc for heroin and 5pc for amphetamines.
About 100 more people sought help from DAAT in 2005/06 than the year before, with 2,325 users getting help compared with 2,201 the previous year.
Last year, heroin was the drug most misused, with 57pc treated for heroin misuse compared with 12pc for problems with cannabis.
Ms Schofield continued: “A rise in people seeking treatment could be attributed to a number of factors, including better awareness of the services available to young people in Norfolk or better identification of young people’s drug and/or related needs, resulting in subsequent referrals.”
A decade ago there was a 16,000-strong pro-cannabis march in London, and this was credited with forcing the Government to downgrade the legal status of cannabis to class C.
New research to be published in this week’s Lancet will show how cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.
The results come after experts analysed 20 substances for addictiveness, social harm and physical damage.
Visit http://www.nordat.org.uk for more information about the services provided.
Has caused you or your family problems? Call Sarah Hall on 01603 772426 or email sarah.hall2@archant.co.uk
awwww people are getting to para for a spliff…. sorry its not a laughing matter really… hahaha. People who seek help for cannabis problems really shouldn’t of touched the stuff in the first place if they don’t have the mental strength/stability to cope.
and I personally think paranoia is something that naturally comes as you get older whoever you are…. you worry about more things (i.e. families, work, bills etc)…. I do anyway as I have got older but then again maybe thats the weed hehe ah well….
I did read an interesting article in the paper a few days ago where it said a spliff can change the way you think forever… because it alters the chemicals in your brain permanently… don’t know whether its true or bullshit though.
nah, I think its the opposite (although I rarely smoke weed these days)
you might have more worries and maybe even angry or paranoid feelings but with maturity you become better at dealing with them…. if you are taking drugs you know “this is just the effect of a drug”
TBH a certain amount of “paranoia” and cynicism is actually healthy and a survival instinct when doing things outside the law or that society does not agree with,
IMO a lot of it is actually caused by prohibition and the enforced guilt/self loathing because people are telling you “drugs are bad m’kay”
OTOH there is a binge culture these days and drugs are cheaper/easier to get.
I think one reason the 90s youths didn’t fuck up quite as much as now is simply due to market forces; drugs and alcohol were more expensive relative to the amount of spare cash we had.
Plus people are stubborn and refuse to cut down even though they may be lunching out important things in life; also I think a lot of the psychosis is because people are genuinely angry about the way things are in their lives – cannabis “works” because it demotivates them to fight or hurt someone else, but at the same time they are still feeling the anger/paranoia and its a vicious circle…
Yeah, I can completely agree with that, to be honest. You probably are right about managing your worries as you get older, it is true. Although I do worry about more things, than I did when I was younger, I do cope with them very well. Where as when I was younger I used to worry about less things but in a much worse way. I would end up smoking weed to ignore them and then they would just explode in my face and I would end up in deep shit.
Each person handles and sees things differently I guess… but they way I view life I think is quite healthy… I’m only 21 and pretty much all my friends still make up excuses etc for things they have done or more than likely didn’t do.. where as I don’t.. I don’t bury my head in sand it is much better to deal with issues than to build them up and worry about them. Not only that but much more healthier on the brain IMO. raaa
TBH i think cannabis can be quite dangerous… i know that if i went on a paranoied trip which happened many times a while back (i still suffer a bit of anxiety when smoking weed, depending on who im with) it would be a really shitty few hours with implications on how i felt the next day… this happens to me less now… but i think thats cuz i cut out all the pills and other drugs mostly now… i mean i still do them but infrequently… again i think its an education thing… we need to get the young to understand that if they are feeling paranoied about something when stoned its probably because they have an underlying issue which needs dealing with…. i dunno im not a psychiatrist and am also almost against psychotherapy because of its love for giving out medication to again cover over issues that need addressing… i got through my shit… if ur getting paranoied … it dosnt mean ur mentally ill… just that you need to work out why ur paranoied and deal with it…. hmmm thoughts?
agreed….
I started smoking around age 16 and was at the peak of it around age 19-21…
I did sometimes get paranoia but part of it was because of worries of getting caught, or that you were lunching out other stuff in your life,
plus also I was realising some of my “friends” were getting into a level of criminality I didn’t agree with (such as shoplifting, car crime and burgling houses)
In the end I changed who I hung around with and things got better (many of my old friends are now in jail, some are dead or with dead-end lives, other are sectioned and there are only a few from that time I really miss..)
In hindsight a lot of my “paranoia” was actually justified, many “friends” were just opportunist acquaintances and would drop you as soon as anything better came along…. it was drugs that united people rather than anything lasting.
Plus your teenage/young years are when you are working out your identity and place in society, I was struggling with wanting to party but my parents wanting me to live a more “traditional” British Asian lifestyle; not quite the arranged marriage/religion type stuff but just to study hard and get a degree and a decent job (well I got the third so didn’t do too badly)
its a matter of balancing it so drugs become an addition to your life rather than an escape from it…
I do think though too many people get into a pattern of everyday smoking and that isn’t too constructive (for all the boredom I am glad of my day jobs that have kept me occupied and not just getting stoned!)
Plus skunk is defo way way stronger than anything I was getting up to about 1993/4 or so…. smoking a whole skunk spliff in the morning would be like drinking scotch or Vodka for breakfast (not something I would recommend doing on a regular basis.)
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Forums › Drugs › Quitting, Rehab & Detox › UK : East : Record number of Norfolk’s youngsters seeking cannabis rehab treatment
