UK media finally covering the study showing no link between marijuana and schizophrenia
Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
OK, so it’s a whole two months since we brought this study to your attention on the Stash, but whenever the British press prints something good about cannabis, it’s news to us.
(The Sentinel) A STUDY by North Staffordshire academics has rejected a link between smoking cannabis and an increase in mental illness.
The research found there were no rises in cases of schizophrenia or psychoses diagnosed in the UK over nine years, during which the use of the drug had grown substantially.
From their base at the Harplands Psychiatric Hospital in Hartshill, the four experts reviewed the notes of hundreds of thousands of patients at 183 GP practices throughout the country to look for any changing rate in cases of schizophrenia.
The work had been set up to see if earlier forecasts from other experts had been borne out, that the mental disorder would soar through the growing popularity of cannabis.
[Researchers concluded,] “The casual models linking cannabis with schizophrenia and other psychoses are… not supported by our study.”Hartshill-based Dilys Wood, national co-ordinator of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, said that so far the report had been published in medical journals and would have a far-reaching reaction if it surfaced more widely.
She added: “I believe that if it had found a causal link between cannabis and schizophrenia it would have been all over the press.
“The public needs to know the truth about drugs; not more Government-led propaganda.”
And Alliance press officer Don Barnard said: “It is hard to believe the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith did not know of this very important research when deciding to upgrade cannabis to Class B.”
Of course the Home Office knew the study showed no truth to the notion that the increase in “skunk” cannabis usage leads to increase in mental illness. That’s why you didn’t hear anything about it from Secretary Smith and PM Brown as they raised cannabis back to Class B from Class C. No, they let the UK Media spread the lies about “skunk” cannabis like Chef, 17, “killed by cannabis”, or Cannabis alters human DNA and causes cancer, or Cannabis ‘can cause psychosis in healthy people’, or ‘Skunk’ will bring out scary multiple personalities!
