Click for larger viewOne of Britain’s leading newspapers, Independent On Sunday, today carries a front-page apology for its decade-long campaign to legalise cannabis.  In 1997, the paper called for cannabis to be decriminalised, but today it reverses its stand.  The change of mind is driven by the skyrocketing number of people being treated for cannabis-induced psychosis, addiction, and other psychological problems.  One of several reports in today’s Independent refers to a “mental health time bomb”.

Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago.

More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction – and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.

A decade after this newspaper's stance culminated in a 16,000-strong pro-cannabis march to London's Hyde Park – and was credited with forcing the Government to downgrade the legal status of cannabis to class C – an IoS editorial states that there is growing proof that skunk causes mental illness and psychosis.

The decision comes as statistics from the NHS National Treatment Agency show that the number of young people in treatment almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006, and that 13,000 adults also needed treatment.

The newspaper defends its former support for legalisation by saying that the cannabis consumed nowadays is not the same stuff hippies used to consume back in the 1960s.

Growing new strains of cannabis under ultra-violet lights, dealers have been able to intensify the quantity of the chemical tetrahydrocannabidinol (THC) – a psycho-active compound that disrupts brain activity and distorts sensory perceptions. In short, the part that gets you high. But feelings of euphoria and relaxation can be soured by paranoia and memory loss. Significantly, teenagers whose brains are still developing are more sensitive to the sudden rush of THC into the brain.

Today record numbers of young people are in treatment programmes for skunk abuse and hospital admissions due to the drug are at their highest ever.

New research on twenty illicit drugs and substances shows that cannabis is more dangerous than LSD or ecstasy.

Over 60% of cannabis sold in the UK is grown at home, compared to only 11% in the late 1990s.  At the same time, the price has fallen to £43 per ounce, barely one-third of the 1994 average price of £120.

I, for one, am glad to see the Independent get its head out of the sand about cannabis.  Still, the paper’s claim that, ten years ago, it was not wrong to advocate decriminalization, is disturbing.  The drug has changed, says the leader writer: Its psychotropic effects are much more powerful than they used to be.

We quote John Maynard Keynes in our defence: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Yet, the fundamental fact—that cannabis can induce addiction and psychosis—was known even in the 1960s.  What has changed is only the frequency of cannabis-triggered psychological harm.

In any case, one hopes that the Independent on Sunday will now campaign against cannabis usage as forcefully as it formerly campaigned for decriminalisation.

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