Psychosis link to soft drug laws

[Tom]

CRIMINAL sanctions for growing and possessing cannabis should be tightened, according to the Howard Government, which is increasingly concerned by the havoc drugs are wreaking on Australia's young minds.

 

One drug expert warned yesterday that the rising number of people using illicit substances was a mental health "time bomb".

The warning came just days after a report exposed how psychologically ill patients were dying because of poorly co-ordinated care.

 

Parliamentary secretary for health Christopher Pyne, who has oversight on drugs, also blasted relaxed state cannabis laws, saying the states "all need to toughen up their laws dramatically", especially in regard to cultivation and personal use.

 

A separate report this week also revealed that one in 10 Australians had tried the so-called "party drug" methamphetamine and were 11 times more likely to suffer psychosis.

 

But methamphetamine is just one of many recreational drugs experts now say can lead directly to mental health problems such as schizophrenia.

 

NSW figures show usage rates for cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy are all rising. While there are no national statistics for new cases of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, figures this week from South Australia show a disturbing link between drug use and mental health problems - and a further association with criminality.

Forensic psychologist Craig Raeside reviewed more than 2000 people facing criminal charges whom he assessed from 2001 to 2005, and found more than 75per cent used marijuana, and 58 per cent amphetamines.

 

Of the marijuana users, 60per cent had a mental illness, compared with 71per cent of the amphetamine users.

 

While 27per cent of Australians aged 14 and over confessed in a national survey in 1985 to having tried cannabis, by last year that had risen to 33.6per cent - a proportion drug experts claim would have been 10percentage points higher had the question's wording not been changed in 2001.

 

Amphetamine use also rose, from 7per cent to 9.1per cent over the same time. Ecstasy use shot up from 2.2per cent in 1991 to 7.5per cent last year.

 

One of the authors of last week's report on the crumbling mental health system, Ian Hickie, said amphetamine-related drugs were "very clearly associated with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses" and that the rising use of methamphetamine alone "would be expected to have a very dramatic effect on the incidence rates and increase in severity" of mental health problems.

 

The rising use of recreational drugs was "a major issue for public policy", because the evidence now seemed conclusive that use of cannabis and several other substances wrongly thought of as harmless "party drugs" contributed both to psychotic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and to non-psychotic complaints including anxiety and depression.

 

"It's a bit like cigarette smoking 50 years ago, when it was associated with a lot of vascular and lung diseases," he said.

 

"A lot of people said: 'Well, it's not the cause (of lung cancer) on its own and you shouldn't do anything until you know the actual cause.'

 

"But in reality, the epidemiological evidence is there to suggest we should be trying to minimise exposure to cannabis in young teenagers, and certainly trying to minimise the total use."

 

Another expert, Paul Dillon, information manager of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said that while the figures on people using cannabis were rising relatively slowly, this concealed the fact that young people were using the drug more often, using more of it, smoking the stronger parts of the plant and doing so in a riskier way.

 

"You put those factors together and what you have got is a real time bomb in terms of what this could do to some young people," he said.

 

Mr Pyne singled out South Australia as "the most lax", for issuing on-the-spot fines for growing cannabis for personal use.

 

He called on all state governments to ensure that there was no lessening of the severity of penalties between cannabis and other drugs.

 

"It concerns me that the penalties at the state level for private use and cultivation are solacking in seriousness," Mr Pyne said.

 

"The states should recognise their role in sending the right message."

 

Professor Hickie said any further moves towards decriminalisation should be resisted, and there was also a problem with suggestions of making cannabis available for medical use, if this promoted an idea that it was healthy.

 

South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson defended the state's laws. "We have strengthened laws so that anyone caught growing cannabis hydroponically has to front court, as does anyone growing more than one plant in a way other than hydroponically," he said.

 

NSW Premier Morris Iemma has already written to John Howard and state and territory leaders calling for a mental health summit early next year. His spokesman said the Government was "concerned about ... the impact these substances can have".

 

 

 

Author:By Adam Cresswell and Simon Kearney. Additional reporting: Jeremy Roberts

Date:October 29, 2005

Source:www.news.com.au

Copyright:2005 News Limited

 

[Doob]

Pathetic puppet howard

[raverspec]

Read between the lines and they are associating stastics with people who have TRIED these substances with people ABUSING these substances. And people have always smoked the bud of the plant haven't they? I can't imagine all the hippies in the 60s harvesting all the leaves and throwing the buds away.

[toasty]

One thing that I can't get past with these 'scientific' studies. They asked

Forensic psychologist Craig Raeside reviewed more than 2000 people facing criminal charges whom he assessed from 2001 to 2005, and found more than 75per cent used marijuana, and 58 per cent amphetamines.

 

Of the marijuana users, 60per cent had a mental illness, compared with 71per cent of the amphetamine users.

 

It's inconclusive, or at least it should be. If they are facing criminal charges, they are already more likely to be mentally ill than your average citizen. It's quite likely that ~100% of those facing criminal charges drink alcohol, and I'd say a proportion of them are mentally ill as well. Does that mean that alcohol causes mental illness? What about the percentage of mentally ill people that smoke cigarettes? Just because there is a corelation, it doesn't mean that it is cause and effect.

 

Some people need to brush up on their scientific process...

[wildflower]

pfff, i know stupid isn't.

Being stoned will at least have you staying home.

Being pissed will more likely have you rob a 7/11 than if you were sober.

When Stoned I aint going no where.

Its also interesting that they always avoid Alcohol Induced psychosis, including severe depression, violent tendencies and suicidal behaver.

Just ask any recovering alcoholic.

Government will always find favourable statistics for all kinds of bullshit policies.

They can't/wont deal with the underlying issues as to why people ABUSE themselves. Like how about the government showing positive leadership towards Its Nation and its youth, give them something to live for?

How are people suppose to feel waking up each day under this little prick John Howards dictatorship?

Fark gets me depressed, i'll be honest about that.

Public issues like these are instead twisted and taken advantage of to justify pushing through some off the shelf draconian polices. Which in turn make peoples lives even more miserable - crazy huh, so much for the government trying to help with the problem, not make it worse.

 

We're just going to end up with more abuse, more crime and more disillusioned youth ending up on smack.

 

We have an uncaring unforgiving and ruthless regime in the making.

But if this is what the people of australia wanted...

backward times we be gettin..

[WantDaChronic]

i was gonna reply with basically what wildflower said no point now

[Frazz]

Oh no, this is like the chicken or the egg.....Which came first, the mental illness or the marijuana?

 

This is only more fuel for Howard's war on drugs, look how these wormy polticians seize on it to ramp up the penalties for otherwise law-abiding citizens like you and me.

 

Grow hard OzStoners cause before you know it jail-time will be automatic for growing

[WantDaChronic]

Grow hard OzStoners cause before you know it jail-time will be automatic for growing

 

whats to bet that if howard and his goons get their way, any form of indoor growing will be instant jail time and hydroponic grow ops will cop even larger prison terms

 

before we know it, all pot will be grown outdoors, crops will constantly be ripped off, hydro will skyrocket in its price and howard will declare yet another drug war to banish all the bush crops :thumbdown

 

IMO thats exactly what the government wants to happen and when the plants are all grown outdoors, whats to bet the government sprays the plants with harsh and dangerous chemicals that start killing off the people who smoke the plants :thumbdown

[mull]

Well said toasty and wildflower, good words there.

 

 

"One drug expert warned yesterday that the rising number of people using illicit substances was a mental health "time bomb". "

 

He can't have been talking about cannabis then? The plant has been with us in use for thousands of years. Maybe the time bomb has a real slow fuse.

[willrobinson]

"One drug expert warned yesterday that the rising number of people using illicit substances was a mental health "time bomb". "

 

From someone has worked with mentally ill people, I can tell you amphetamine abuse is the major problem. And the problem is huge and getting bigger.

Because young people do not often differentiate between illicit drugs due to the propaganda and miseducation they will often use amphetamines as freely as cannabis. "Amphetamine psychosis" is now in medical professionals vocabulary as a valid mental condition. It fucks many people up for life.