Cannabis the 'soft' drug led to my son's hanging

[Abrad]

www.dailymail.co.uk
A mother demanded last night to know why cannabis was downgraded to the status of a soft drug after it set her talented son on the road to his death.

Former head boy Matthew White, 18, who dropped out of his A-levels when he started smoking cannabis, has been found hanged after progressing to mind-bending LSD. The Government controversially downgraded cannabis from a grade B drug to grade C - meaning those caught in possession of it usually escape with a caution.

Last night, Matthew's mother Colette, a nurse, said: "Why is cannabis regarded as a soft drug? It changed my son's life.

"Matthew came from a good home and he had a good upbringing. He just drifted off the rails. You hear about these events happening to other people, you never think it's going to be you.

"When he started smoking cannabis his attitude changed, there were fewer boundaries. I was convinced he was coming out of it - but my son has lost his life and it's senseless.

"I called the national drugs helpline, the drugs squad and anyone else who I could phone because I felt helpless.

"It's not just about marijuana, it's about the other people he knew who smoked it as a way of life - a thin edge of a very thick wedge.

"There needs to be more education about drugs and the consequences of taking them. Matthew's been stolen from us and he had everything to live for. Now his chances are gone."

Matthew, a brilliant actor, artist and musician, was described as a "towering presence" at St Illtyd's Roman Catholic High School in Rumney, Cardiff.

He was tipped for a bright future as an architect after he gained 10 GCSEs, mostly As and A*s.

Mrs White said: "He had so many talents, he could play guitar, banjo and mandolin, all kinds of different instruments. He even wrote his own music.

"The school was really proud of him, which is why he was elected head boy." Matthew left the school to go to sixth-form college but dropped out before taking his A-levels.

At around the same time he confessed to his parents he had started smoking cannabis. The admission came after his mother and father, Chris, had noticed Matthew was becoming detached and was associating with a new group of "drop-out" friends.

Matthew then began sleeping in a man-made shelter in Leckwith Woods, a few miles from Cardiff, with his new friends.

Mrs White said he came home last month and had a family meal before going to the cinema with his brother. The following morning he left with his friends, and his parents never saw him alive again.

That night, back in the woods, the group celebrated a friend's birthday with cannabis and hallucinogenic LSD.

Matthew's brother Martin, 16, said: "We found out he took two LSD tablets and had a bad reaction to them. The people who were with him told us he went off into the woods and they could hear howling.

"They went to look and found him with a rope tied round his neck. He was about to jump into a river.

"They ran to cut the rope and calmed him down and called an ambulance, but he hadn't suffered any injuries. He said he was OK."

The group went back to their tent and fell asleep but the next morning Matthew was gone.

A search of the woods was launched, and Matthew was found hanging from a tree.

His father Chris said yesterday: "Children should not be tempted with these drugs."

For his funeral next week, the family are asking mourners to make donations to the National Drugs Helpline.

St Illtyd's headmaster Mike Worthington said: "Once you start with drugs it takes a lot of determination to give them up." An inquest was opened by the Cardiff coroner and adjourned pending police inquiries. Police said yesterday that no one else was involved in Matthew's death.

[boylizard]

There is too much left unsaid here. Did anyone ever think that the parents may have been pushing him, hence the good grades, the talents, the 'rebellion'? Also, I think people who are introduced to drugs all at once, as swim was, get into it far worse and usually end up fucking things up. This is indeed a tragedy, yes, but education could have changed it. The un-biased kind.

[meep]

Don't forget, this is from the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail strips out all the 'Facts' and replaces them with their own 'drugs are bad, m'kay' spin.

As lizard said, there is a whole back story to this as always. Its very easy for the Daily Mail to blame weed because thats what its Rover driving, tweed wearing readers like to hear. Christ, I need a chill after reading that. The Daily Mail upsets me. GRRRR

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well said about the Daily Mail m'kay.

[Sky Walker]

Odd, you'd think they would try blame the LSD. Although I suppose they are aware that a large majority of people are still scared of Acid thinking it will make them go crazy while more and more people are coming to the realization that cannibis really isn't all that bad. In fact mostly, it's all good, hence the excessive scaremongering lately, with the possibility of medical marijuana being legalised they know that would be a major backbone for total legalisation or at the very least decriminalisation of recreational use, and they don't want that now do they, whoever they are.

[Nature Boy]

To be honest, I don't think there's an intelligent person alive who could actually be shocked by this little propaganda story. Then again, intelligent people don't read The Daily Mail with this kind of bullshit strewn across its pages. This will probably get a few numbskulls chatting and tut-tutting, no more than that. Still though, it's another sick little pop that will cause yet another dent in the reputation of drug use.

[Creeping Death]

I would kill myself too if i went to catholic school.

[Alicia]

Originally Posted by Abrad

Matthew's brother Martin, 16, said: "We found out he took two LSD tablets and had a bad reaction to them.

Oddly swia thought it was very rare that LSD is found in tablet form which makes me her think it was something else as it usually comes in blotters.

Research Chemical perhaps?

Originally Posted by Abrad

His father Chris said yesterday: "Children should not be tempted with these drugs."

Shame if only he had hung in there a bit longer someone could of helped him out now he's to going to hell, taking the blame that drugs are bad look what they did to my sinner son who killed himself due to the evils of temptation and drugs.. oh no...

Originally Posted by Creeping Death

I would kill myself too if i went to catholic school.

^^
There not that bad, specially when u find the nice sinner type catholics..

[BeetleJuice]

Yea same sky walker, sure he did MJ but LSD is a WHOLE different story.i
wonder how many people actually believed this article.And i very much doubt the mother can sit there talking her anti drug crap,i bet she toked a few back in her days.
Poor souls.

[Spare Chaynge]

that whole story is fishy as hell.

[AntiAimer]

Articles like this truely shows how stupid and ignorant people are. A poor soul who was so brilliant he killed himself....good riddance to bad rubbish.

"Endorphins killed my son! Let's rid the world of people so this tragedy doesn't happen again."

[VitaminK22]

Taking drugs and trying to keep it a secret from family can get very depressing and can have wierd effects on the mind. Swim should know, he's 1 of these ppl. Getting caught after a long period of doin drugs is even more depressing, especially if your family doesnt understand why u take drugs. Parents might pressure their kids into stop taking drug and to stop hangin around with ppl that take them, this can be the most depressing of all. although swim hasnt been caught, he knows his own parents would have b like this.
just cos some1 died from cannabis, it doesnt make it a bad drug. thousands more ppl die every year in the UK from alcohol compared with the very low minority that die from illigal drugs

[iamsostrange]

It's really unfortunate that articles like this are still being posted, then again: it is Daily Mail. Blaming marijuana for one's suicide (especially since LSD was also used that night) is just wrong wrong wrong.

[MrG]

It's just the whole "distortion of truth through association" method. The headline blames mj because acid is never seen as a "safe" drug anyway and wouldn't have the same attention grabbing headlines. "Young man on acid kills himself" is just so 80's.

Also the fact that they can push the blame for his suicide on drugs means that his parents can be lionised as the good, middle england, tax paying, happy consumers that they need to be in order to raise the fear level enough amongst DM readers.

Let's see, young man, hormonal, talented, put on a pedestal and praised in almost every aspect of his life. Any guys here who *don't* think that is a likely combination for stress induced depression and suicidal thoughts at that age?

I knew a young lad like that once, incredibly smart, OxBridge cert, his parents were so proud of him. Trouble is, he used to like to challenge people to hold lit flames on the back of his arms and claim that they would back down before he would. I never saw him back down once. Even when you could smell his skin burning and see it bubbling. His parents had no idea.

What I don't understand is how the Fathers of these young men apparently have no recall to their own fears and pressures experienced when they were at this stage in their lives. Maybe they hand out blinkers in the "welcome to middle england" activity pack, along with driving gloves, self-lobotomy kit and barely disguised disgust for the working class.

[oldfart]

Hello!!! Did any one read the fact that he was on LSD when he hanged himself. There is probably a BIG back story (no surprise if he was being pushed at every level by just the way his mother talks about him) Head boy no pressure to succeed there. The smoking of POT was probably done long before his parent thinks it was first, and I will agree where you can find pot you can usually find someone with harder drugs. Pressure to win probably pushed him to do the LSD (some idiot probably said here this will help you free yourself of your pressure and he snatched that tab right up. the same idiot probably forgot to keep an eye on their new tripper. Where I come from this keeping an eye was an unwritten law, but obviously with the self centered soiciety we are breeding this idiot never heard that rule.)

[stoneinfocus]

there must have been a very bad setting for him that must have developed over years before grewn inside.

I think, most of the A graders completely overrated moron´s, that are posossesing their good grades by predjudice and because of the parent´s name and profession and for crawling into the teachers butts deep enough.

Maybe he hated banjo, music, being admired by his parents and all those ass-lickers and would have been into something else, (maybe having sex with the ugly kid in his age ,around the corner, he strangely feels attracted to, and liking to splatter his cum all across the face) .

Using LSD or a reefer, with a self-determined back-ground ansd true privacy and autonomy, and thus without any bad sides or the force to hang himself, or he wouldn´t been using drugs at all (which I dopubt ´cause itßsfreedom and pioneering using mind altering drugs that goes hand-in-hand with real privacy autonomy) he would have decided what to do and experimented conciously wether something fits to his developed life-style, , without commiting suicide in the first place.

Again, social human error, that´s blindly referred to drugs, so no-one has to take the blame for still being greedy, selfish morons with all the consequences.

Swim was on LSD big time, on Mescaline and he was even conducting a car, but when doing this he knew and felt conscious, that he could do it and it all went well, because he instinctively stopped driving a car, in fact he was doing it all right, with no suicidal attempts or outrageous horror scenario, except for getting into a fun-fight for a bottle of beer and such things (trip was a Hoffman).

To answere the question, I think cannabis is downscaled, because it´s so widely available, and imprison every cannabis felony would simply be too expensive -hell it doesn´t matter, if it´s healthy, had benefits etc., if they would have been able to prohibid alcohol successfully, we all wouldn´t bee drinking and subject to pure hate-propaganda against alcohol and tough jurisdiction for being involved with alcohol.

[oldfart]

IN the US if they would let all the offenders that ONLY had a MJ offense OUT, at least 25% of the prison system would be emptied and overcrowding would probably be non existant. In addition the taxes and tarrifs associated with the leagalization of MJ would balance the national budget in less than 3 years. Medical uses abound, new clinical (with a control group) studies find the effetcs of MJ to be highly (pardon the pun) beneficial to Aids patients, Cancer, Glaucoma, Adult ADHD, Cirtain Forms of dislexia, general pain killing effects. It is by far the safest, most useful, all natural, non addictive, substance on the planet man made or otherwise. So why is it that governments like the US which promise the persuit of happiness, stifle their citizens ability to do so without fear of imprisonment or persecution?