'Get tough on skunk or more will die'

[Abrad]

www.telegraph.co.uk
Addicts will kill more people unless the Government takes tougher action against super-strength cannabis, a mental health charity has warned.

Police have seized thousands of cannabis plants in raids to shut factories

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the charity SANE, said at least a third of murders committed by addicts of skunk cannabis were preventable.

She called for an education campaign to teach young people that skunk was highly dangerous and for special mental health units to treat users suffering from schizophrenia.

The warning comes after a spate of killings linked to the drug.

Ms Wallace said: "The latest figures show 79 per cent of school children think cannabis is both harmless and legal, but we clearly need to have a much stronger message that it can devastate the mind.

"It's like giving school children loaded guns."

Last month an 18-year-old cannabis user was jailed for the frenzied murder of two school friends and earlier this week a teenager addicted to skunk admitted to stabbing a grandmother to death.
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Ms Wallace said the killings could have been prevented if there was more rigorous control of the drug.

A Home Office spokesman said the Government had recently launched a £1.8 million anti-drugs campaign and that police had seized 28,000 cannabis plants in raids to shut cannabis factories.

"Our message is clear - cannabis is harmful, is an illegal drug and should not be taken," she said. "Although skunk is not the dominant cannabis product on the market, we are concerned that its potency has increased."

In 2004 cannabis was downgraded from a class B to a class C drug, a reflection of the softening of political attitudes to "dope".

However, there is growing concern about its side-effects, particularly the link to psychosis and mental illness.

[Trebor]

To me, all this bitching about Skunk has become white noise. I have decided not to hear it. In yesterdays Sun there was something ahout a guy who killed himself. Supposedly becuase of Skunk but the article also said he was on anti-depressents. ANybody think it may have been those?

[Nagognog2]

Let's see...SSRI antidepressants have warnings on the packages about watching out for suicidal ideation. Cannabis is known to cause the giggles and a warm euphoric feeling.

Yup. Must be the cannabis! Now excuse me while I drool on my shirt and wave my arms around violently...

[Nature Boy]

79% of school kids think cannabis is legal?! Bullshit! If anything 79% of school children probably think cannabis is lethal and getting caught with as little as a gram means ending up in prison and afterwards burning in the bowels of hell for all eternity.

[baron samedi]

Still rather sad that they focus on a tiny amount of "skunk" users who have mental illnesses and go on to commit violent crime, as appose to the many who may die of lung/throat cancer because of smoking adulterated soapbar and grit weed. Not surprising but sad. Even the Independent have stopped their campaign for cannabis legalization, because of the skunk hysteria. People will always latch on to the negative aspects of drug use and conveniently ignore any positive research.

[Nagognog2]

If I owned a newspaper, or other media outlet, and I published a story that the water-supply was contaminated with some dreadful poison and people had to flee their homes and head for the hills - when no such thing was true - I could expect to be sued broke and likely imprisoned for causing mass hysteria. Now what about this sort of bullcrap?

Has anyone looked into the legal possibilities of suing the liars behind these utter lies and propaganda? I can think of several grounds for a class-action lawsuit off the top of my head. At the very least doing so would bring these planted stories being lies to the forefront of the public's attention.

[Trebor]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

If I owned a newspaper, or other media outlet, and I published a story that the water-supply was contaminated with some dreadful poison and people had to flee their homes and head for the hills - when no such thing was true - I could expect to be sued broke and likely imprisoned for causing mass hysteria. Now what about this sort of bullcrap?

Has anyone looked into the legal possibilities of suing the liars behind these utter lies and propaganda? I can think of several grounds for a class-action lawsuit off the top of my head. At the very least doing so would bring these planted stories being lies to the forefront of the public's attention.

Nag, I may look into that. If so would it be pluasable to actually luanch that case?

[snapper]

SWIM can only laugh at this...
HAHAHAHAHA!!
It is so ridiculous that you would think it came out of the national enquirer.
WHAT THE HELL IS SKUNK ANYWAYS ?!
It is cannnabis sativa or indica that is smelly !
SWIM can only guess that reefer madness hysteria sells newspapers.
SWIM thinks all the skunk addicts should take out the editor of the sun as well as the author of the paper. That is if they weren't so damn stoned !
Disclaimer :above is sarcasm. Save the stormtroopers for another hapless victim...

[fnord]

here in the us skunk is just skunky smelling weed.is there a diffrence?

[Alicia]

"Skunk" Is only one strain in thousands of different strains of cannabis that have different ratios of Indica and sativa traits. These news papers like to make people idiots they really do and anyone who knew any difference would laugh at this bullshit.

Personally swia is getting sick of telling people different. Dont you all think its strange that when cannabis granma's was out with good excuses and reasons for it. Then all these bullshit news articles started appearing?

I wonder how long there gonna keep talking to people like there idiots.

[Nagognog2]

You'd need to ask that to those who are involved in legal work in your country.

[snapper]

It wouldn't wash - SWIY would have to show harm was done by the slanderous statements, and the courts would be only too happy to say that only good has come of it by discouraging the use of cannabis which has been shown in a 'scientific study' to cause schizophrenia.
However, SWIM could start a rumor that people are getting high off of skunk musk...that might make for some interesting situations...
" Recent investigations have shown that 'skunk' actually is tainted with the musk of skunks to increase the smell and make th high more deadly, and it's causing our kids to rob, murder and smoke crack so that they can get their fix..."
Are there skunks in Britain ?

[Nagognog2]

The concept would not be to win the case and recieve financial awards (though that would be nice). The idea would be to make enough noise that everyone has to stop and notice what is going on.

[Senor Gribson]

isn't skunk a lost strain?
in all the seed shops, SWIM has seen many of the 'classics' but never an original skunk. just 'purple skunk' or 'kush skunk' etc. all which have the skunky smell and come from a strain that was bred with a strain that may have been crossed with an original skunk.

i'm guessing that the original skunk would have been in a cannabis cup, so if anyone knows where to find records of cup contestants it'd be interesting see which year skunk was entered. something tells me this is a really old strain, not some new super-premium 1-hit wonder.

[Senor Gribson]

wow that was easier than i thought...
turns out the winner of the first ever cannabis cup was "skunk #1", whoda thunk?

[Alicia]

the funny thing is thou skunk is not that strong comparing to strains like White widow other variants such as nevilles haze mmmm..

[baron samedi]

Wouldn't surprise SWIM if reefer madness 2:the sequel is being filmed right this minute. So the truth is out, marijuana really does turn ordinary people in to wide-eyed, psychopathic loons with merely a hit. They were right all along!

[Nagognog2]

I'm afraid that the "wide-eyed, psychopathic loons" are the ones feeding these stories to the press/public. Must be something in the gin and whiskey.

[Alicia]

even funnier still is some people who suffer "Drug induced psychosis" or schizophrenia like illness often sometimes these people actually medicate on cannabis and similar substances to reduce there symptoms. But officials will always say that cannabis is responsible. Granted for some might of sped up the onset, but whose to say these people dont use other substances and are ashamed of those ones and say its cannabis's fault ..

All speculation. People who kill know what there doing is wrong. Freaks out where people who do kill is usually the result from brain damage or other organic damage to the brain caused either by accidents orby cancer actual killings by schizophrenics is very rare indeed often they are the victims. Press are the people that make the bs. they just listen to certain words and see what they can make.

[baron samedi]

even funnier still is some people who suffer "Drug induced psychosis" or schizophrenia like illness often sometimes these people actually medicate on cannabis and similar substances to reduce there symptoms. But officials will always say that cannabis is responsible. Granted for some might of sped up the onset, but whose to say these people dont use other substances and are ashamed of those ones and say its cannabis's fault ..

Exactly what SWIM was thinking actually. The jury's still out for psychiatrists on whether cannabis helps or hinders schizophrenics. Some think it takes the edge off anti-psychotics, others that it stops them working properly. A couple of negative studies does not change the fact that many patients feel it helps them and relieves their symptoms temporarily.

Anyway SWIM is pretty sure that countries like the Netherlands and Canada actually prescribepot for certain mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety and insomnia. Given that countries like this are very much part of the developed world, you would think that their practices would be given more importance. Yet very few media outlets ever report this, only the negatives of pot use.

[Trebor]

Leary had a great qoute.

"LSD cuases pyschosis only to those who haven't taken it."