Going soft on cannabis
Cannabis campaigners are on the march. They want the drug legalised, and they want it now.
A man with psychosis who stabbed five people in Edmonton, north London during March and April last year was smoking cannabis daily, it has been revealed.
Jason Kakaire, 30, said voices in his head told him to kill people to prevent himself from being killed.
He had been treated for mental ill health for nine years before the attacks, and his psychiatrists said he also experienced other regular hallucinations.
Psychosis link
Kakaire said he recognised that regular cannabis use may in fact have been the cause of some of the hallucinations.
Prominent drugs researcher Sir Robin Murray believes the rise in psychiatric patients is related to the smoking of potent forms of cannabis.
Sir Robin’s studies show that cannabis use is not safe and has clear links to psychosis.
Last year, he and fellow researcher Dr Marta Di Forti set up the first NHS clinic for psychotic patients, aimed at helping addicts and regular cannabis users to quit.
Drug killings
It emerged last month that almost half of the murders in the UK between March 2018 and March 2019 were linked to drugs.
In the past ten years, the figure of drug-related homicides has never fallen below 36 per cent. It rose to 47 per cent in the Office for National Statistics’ latest report.
Cannabis was revealed to be the most-used drug, while demand for cocaine is at its highest level on record.
Lib Peck, of the Violence Reduction Unit in London, said: “We know that drugs fuel violence”.
Also see:
‘I lost my son because of his cannabis-induced schizophrenia’
Cannabis-related hospital admissions rise 15 per cent in England