Pubdate: Thu, 11 Jul 2002
Source: East Anglian Daily Times (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Eastern Counties Newspapers Group Ltd
Contact:  http://www.eadt.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/913
Author: Katey Edwards

CANNABIS SENT TRAGIC SHAUN OVER EDGE

STANDFIRST: Home Secretary David Blunkett yesterday effectively 
decriminalised cannabis, marking the biggest shift in Government policy for 
30 years. For parents, his move will only add to their anxiety. All they 
can hope is to be able to equip their children with sufficient armoury - 
common sense and moral integrity - to emerge from adolescence unscathed. 
Katy Edwards spoke to one mother who blames cannabis for robbing her of her 
youngest son.

THE cannabis debate will inevitably roll on. To legalise or not to 
legalise, that is the question. Meanwhile, youngsters are getting on with 
the business of smoking it, rolling joints, making bongs, hot-knifing - 
whatever gets it into their bloodstream the quickest.

Ever since David Blunkett announced plans to downgrade Cannabis from class 
B to C last October, the word on the street has been that you cannot be 
lynched for possession. Users are even smoking it openly in public places. 
Parents would be naive to assume their child has never shared a spliff or 
rolled a joint. A survey by the Alcohol and Health Research Centre last 
year showed that just over 35 per cent of 15-16-year-olds had tried cannabis.

Billed as the least harmful of recreational narcotics, cannabis can still 
wreck lives, as Maureen and John Griffiths found out, to their horror, when 
it drove their son Shaun to commit suicide.

Shaun Griffiths was a day away from his 17th birthday when he took his own 
life. It was not a spur of the moment thing. He had been planning it for 
some time.

His father found him upstairs in their house in Castle Hedingham, a rope 
around his neck and a plastic bag over his head. Shaun had also placed a 
canister of lighter fuel in the bag with the button taped down. This was no 
cry for help.

That was 14 years ago. Now, for the first time, his mother Maureen, 58, 
wants to speak about his death as a warning to other young teenagers. She 
has no doubt that cannabis had disturbed his mind, possibly even prompting 
paranoid delusions or schizophrenia.

He left several neatly penned notes, which were quickly collected by the 
police and a tape recorded message to his friends. In a note to his parents 
Shaun wrote: "Mum and dad, I know you want me to be happy. This is the only 
way I know how." To his friends he said that his life was not worth living 
and that no one understood him. Maureen described the tape recorded message 
as 'all confused'.

She said: "I hate to imagine what a terrible state he must have been in 
when he made it. He also said he was hearing voices and wanted to know if 
he was going mad. They were telling him to commit suicide. This is the only 
indication we ever had that he might be schizophrenic.

I believe it is possible the cannabis triggered that mental illness. What 
else made him change so much? Even if the cannabis didn't trigger it off, 
it certainly couldn't have helped it."

To everyone around him, with the exception of a small circle of close 
friends who knew his dark thoughts, Shaun appeared to be a normal teenager. 
He was having little trouble fitting in at Braintree College, where he had 
started five months before his death and was coping with his three A-levels 
in Physics, Chemistry and French. His fifth form personal statement from 
his former school in Oxfordshire depicts a well-motivated, rounded pupil 
with an interest in drama and the arts and a part time job picking up 
litter at the Cotswold Wildlife Park. He also had a pet garter snake and 
wrote for the school magazine.

Shaun smiles out from the pages of the family photograph album, playing 
tennis on holiday with his older brother, now 33, and living in 
Gloucestershire, or petting animals on a farm. A snap taken just a few 
weeks before his death shows him happily unwrapping a Christmas present.

Looking at the photographs again at the family's new home in Bury St 
Edmunds, refreshes the tragedy for Maureen. Once again, she asks herself 
how it could have happened. How her beautiful, talented son, who had his 
whole life in front of him, could have thrown it all away.

"We didn't find out he had been smoking cannabis until after his death," 
she said.

"We knew he was smoking cigarettes and we didn't approve. He sometimes went 
to the pub with his friends but we weren't aware of him ever having been 
drunk. As far as we know, he never took anything stronger than cannabis 
apart from possibly Magic Mushrooms once at a party.

That's what his friends have told us and we have to take their word for 
it." Shaun's drug habit came to light when Maureen discovered some letters 
to friends in Oxfordshire.  "It appears they were all unsure of themselves 
and of what they were going to do in the future. They spoke of being bored 
and were all trying, or thinking about trying drink, drugs and sex. One of 
them said his mother might ring me to tell me they had been smoking 
cannabis. Another letter asked Shaun why he was still taking drugs.

"We had no idea. He appeared normal whenever he was with us. I am not 
blaming Shaun's friends for him smoking cannabis. It was his decision. It 
seemed so strange as he had always been anti-everything like drugs and 
smoking. He had been brought up as a Christian."

In retrospect, Maureen suspects the cannabis heightened the words of 
Shaun's favourite bands (Poison, Bon Jovi, Queen, Pink Floyd) making him 
believe they were speaking to him.

"There were quotes in the letters from songs about death and hopelessness. 
I found the words quite shocking," she added.

On the day Shaun died, neighbours reported hearing a mixture of heavy metal 
and snippets from Jesus Christ Superstar coming from his room, almost as if 
there was a battle raging between good and evil, said Maureen.

Shaun had never given his parents any reason to believe he had been 
experimenting with drugs or was in any way depressed until a few days 
before his death. He returned home from a Christmas visit to see his old 
friends in Oxfordshire, unusually withdrawn.

His parents became very concerned after Maureen found a letter he was 
writing to a friend.

"Something about the contents seemed final, as if he was saying goodbye," 
said Maureen.

"I asked him whether he was alright or if he was upset about anything. We 
begged him to talk about it, if not to us then to his Oxfordshire friends 
no matter what the cost of the phone bill. We told him he didn't have to go 
to college if he didn't want to, we could find him a job."

Shaun did not reveal anything. The next day, he went shopping with a friend 
in London and returned home positive and cheerful, telling his parents 
hewould stay at college.They were relieved by the apparent change of heart. 
Now, Maureen realises there may have been different forces at work in his head.

"I wonder whether it was just because he had made his mind up, he knew what 
he was going to do," she said.

The first day back at college in January Sean was invited to a party the 
same evening. His father drove him there and picked him up.

Maureen said: "He was a bit quiet on the way home but he seemed OK."

After Shaun's death, his parents discovered he had told everyone at the 
party he was going to kill himself the next day. He had even withdrawn all 
of his savings in order to buy them all drinks.

The following morning, Shaun said goodbye to his parents as usual, making 
as if to go to college. Instead, he stayed at home to carry out his plan. 
When he failed to turn up for lessons, a friend, who had heard his 
intentions at the party, telephoned to check up on him. Shaun answered and 
told the friend he was fine. When the boy rang again, later that afternoon, 
there was no reply. Shaun's father heard the telephone as he came in from 
work. The call worried him and he rushed upstairs. He discovered Shaun's 
body lying on the stairs leading to the attic and tried, in vain, to 
resuscitate him.

A post mortem showed Shaun had died of asphyxiation. Maureen does not 
believe that tests were carried out to detect cannabis in his bloodstream. 
A coroner recorded a verdict that Shaun had taken his own life.

Maureen said: "There are still so many questions unanswered. It was all so 
strange and many of Shaun's friends did not want to talk at the time.

Fortunately John and I are both Christians and our faith has helped us to 
carry on. Neither of us has sought to blame the other. I'm not saying we 
are blameless, you always look back and think you could have done something 
different but you do only ever do the things you think are best for your 
children at the time.

"We trusted Shaun. We thought that the good values and ideas that he had 
before he was a teenager would carry him through those difficult years. We 
were obviously wrong but it is too late now for us or Shaun.

"Life for teenagers in the 1950s, when John and I were young, was much 
easier. We didn't have so much pressure on us and there seemed to be 
moreambition to improve yourself. We wanted to learn, we had hope for the 
future that the world would be a better place that we could help create a 
caring society. We had Christian values.

"Somehow, in trying to improve things for our children we have failed. They 
have the material things but the other values seem to have been lost.

"Sometimes I am very sad thinking of Shaun's death and the pain and 
suffering he must have been going through to have taken his own life. Then 
I remember the good times. He did have a happy childhood, his brother 
confirms this. It was only when he was about 13 or 14 that the influence of 
others took over and he began to change, not for the better.

"We have been through great pain and suffering because of what happened and 
our inability to prevent that outcome. We all have a duty to do our best to 
make the world a better place for everyone and give hope to our youngsters. 
Legalising cannabis is not the way forward.

"We love Shaun. I believe that, in spite of what he did, he is in heaven. 
He was such a wonderful part of our lives and we miss him and wish he was 
still with us.

"We have decided this is the right time to tell his story as a warning to 
other young people tempted to experiment with drugs of any kind. It looks 
as though cannabis will eventually be legalised. I believe that would be a 
grave mistake. Perhaps Shaun's example will make people aware of the 
dangers before it is too late."
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MAP posted-by: Beth