Source: Sun Herald (Australia)
Contact:  http://www.sunherald.fairfax.com.au/
Copyright: 1998 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Nov 1998
Page: 75
Author: S. I. COHEN, visiting professor University of Newcastle

A CANNABIS CON

DR Andrew Byrne and Dr Raymond Seidler (Letters, November 8) cannot have
seen the harm done by cannabis and I invite them to spend a day at the
Psychiatric Emergency Clinic of the James Fletcher Hospital (or at any
general casualty department) when they would see at least one and often
several young adults in a state of terror as a result of a drug-induced
psychosis, with terrifying delusions and hallucinations.

They might alternatively see other types of serious mental disorder
associated with cannabis use, such as a manic illness, cannabis being
nowadays the most common cause of mania in young adults. All these very sick
people become well in less than a week when they stop their drugs.

A very large number of people take cannabis and only a small proportion
develop these serious disorders, so there is an element of individual
vulnerability, but the number who do become ill is sufficiently large for at
least one to appear virtually every day in any busy hospital.

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Checked-by: Don Beck