Jon Snow is a well-known British journalist who was asked to smoke two balloons filled with a potent strain of skunk as part of a documentary into the effects of cannabis on the brain. Snow claimed he was more “frightened” than during his many news reports from war zones around the world, and said he felt “utterly bereft.” “I had no idea it could be so powerful and terrifying,” Snow said after the event. “I felt my soul had been wrenched out of my body.” If that sounds a little dramatic, it’s probably because it’s meant to.
This ‘scientific trial’ was approved by the British government in the wake of a study published in medical journal the Lancet, which found a link between psychosis and skunk (a strain of cannabis which has more THC than ordinary marijuana). The jury is still out on whether this link between skunk and mental illness is circumstantial, but hysterical headlines in the British press are damaging the reputation of cannabis at a time when medical marijuana is being legalized in the States.
In his latest episode of The Trews, Russell Brand suggests this documentary was commissioned to sway public opinion and stop any progress on the legalization of cannabis in Britain. He then takes a swipe at other news from this side of the pond: Prime Minister David Cameron (who isn’t the most compassionate man) has announced that vulnerable people who are overweight could lose up to £100 a week ($153) from their social security payments. Brand suggests that sugar might actually be more harmful than any drugs we can buy on the street, and makes some important links between drug use, sugar addiction and depression.
What do you think? Have you ever suffered any negative long-term effects from smoking skunk? Should the law differentiate between skunk and other forms of cannabis with lower THC content? Did you give up sugar, and if so what were the results? Should overweight sugar addicts (not to mention drug addicts) be helped or punished? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
