Strong Dope Making Kids Mentally Ill

Super-strong cannabis is “rewiring” youngsters’ brains, Scotland’s top drug cop warned yesterday. Graeme Pearson, head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said the “skunk” now being sold on our streets is far more potent than the cannabis smoked by hippies in the 60s.

He fears that teenagers who use it will end up with serious mental health problems. Recent studies have linked heavy cannabis use by adolescents to illnesses such as schizophrenia. Pearson said: “For the Woodstock generation of the late 1960s, the potency of cannabis was two to three per cent. Now we are seeing it with potency levels of 13 per cent and upwards.”

Pearson said super-strength cannabis is “just like cocaine and heroin, as it rewires young people’s brains”. He also criticised the decision to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug. He said: “Young people may think, ‘If this is category C, it is harmless.’ But doctors are telling us it is highly dangerous.”

The amount of skunk being grown in drug factories in Britain has risen steeply in recent years. A report in medical journal The Lancet will warn this week that cannabis can be more dangerous than LSD or ecstasy.

Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University, said: “Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. We are faced with a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use.”