Does skunk make you paranoid?
In some cases clearly cannabis can increase feelings of paranoia – “They’re out to get me”.
In most cases what is classed as paranoia is coming from a place of fear. The police are out to get you if you consume cannabis illegally – this is the law. I would argue that in most of these cases the paranoia is justified by rational fear of the consequences of prohibition. Would these feelings be as severe if they were not, in fact, out to get you?
Cannabis consumption can be a very divisive issue. Many years have gone into perpetuating anti-cannabis propaganda – almost 100 years. It’s going to take a long time to unravel all the misinformation and scaremongering around cannabis and mental health.
Headlines of crazy killers driven to fury and bloodlust only serve to perpetuate the ‘scariness’ and otherness of cannabis. Prohibition means only the strongest strains are available to most consumers, which can only be a recipe for disaster.
A 2009 study from the University of Keele showed that there was no causal link between cannabis and schizophrenia. For the small section of the population that may have had a psychotic event induced by high strength cannabis, the law is hardly helping. Let’s for example look at the prescription cannabis market.
Project 2021 has 3000 patients enrolled on it and nearly 60% of those are prescribed high-THC flowers – the very same flowers that the government and police would say is dangerous. Suddenly it turns into medicine when given by a conglomerate of businesses, but if you take it into your own hands, you are a criminal…
That’s not to say that for some people high-THC cannabis can be extremely unpleasant especially if you take too much, which might be a very scary experience – having that experience alone, in a country that criminalises you and has cut all services for young people. When skunk is way easier to find than hope, it must be a life-altering experience. To help people we need to regulate cannabis.
When regulated, the biggest change is information and talking about the topics at hand. When we talk about the real dangers of cannabis with regulation, we must speak honestly. I think our young people deserve honestly and empathy. If we tell them lies like we were told about cannabis, nothing changes. If we open the conversation, young people will be able to find out information about what to do to make an unpleasant cannabis experience be not so terrible, rather than seeing it as psychotic episode which has now resulted in negative feelings towards cannabis. But what if there is more to it and in different context these bad and traumatic experiences turn out positive?
We will find out via the new medical system if the dangers of cannabis can be mitigated by free exchange of information and ideas. This is something Skunk: The Documentary be following over the next year.