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Zilos

As home secretary Charles Clarke re-opens the debate on the classification of cannabis,
one woman tells the BBC how she believes the drug destroyed her brother's life.

Zilos-note: Weekly Reefer Madness Dose...

Pam Blake, 51, from Hayling Island near Portsmouth, said her brother Brian Buckman spiralled into schizophrenia and delusional behaviour because of his heavy smoking.

" Brian started smoking at a very young age, in his teens.

We used to live near Henley-on-Thames and he grew his own cannabis. I have two other brothers, both straight as a die, and one of them found his plants growing in the greenhouse.

My father hit the roof and my brother promised he'd never smoke again.

'Practically disowned'

My brother was a daily smoker and he used to smoke the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes a day.

I saw his decline. He was a very intelligent guy. He was married and he has a 21-year-old son who hasn't seen his father now for 19 years.

I had a phone-call once from the police in High Wycombe saying they had found him. He was talking like a Rastafarian and he believed he was John the Baptist.

I had to get him sectioned which absolutely broke the family up. My father and mother had very old-fashioned ideas about mental illness - you didn't speak about it - and they practically disowned him.

He came to live with me. He would be awake all night and sleep all day.

One doctor asked me if he was smoking cannabis and I said he was - she believed that was what triggered his downfall.

They put him on medication because they believed he was schizophrenic - he was hearing voices, saw messages in the paper and was having delusions of grandeur.

My parents moved to Wales, and he moved with them. For about four years he was fine. But when my father died he became depressed and that tipped him over.

My brother believed he had written the Boney M song Brown Girl in the Ring, things like that.

I believe the last time anyone saw him was around High Wycombe in 1996 and he was basically living the life of a down-and-out.

I believe his problems were brought on by the smoking. He had to have 28 days off it while in hospital and he improved. He seemed in better shape to me.

The family tried to get hold of him after my mother died a few years ago and we couldn't find him. I went to a medium, and she said he had gone.

I don't think cannabis should be legalised. It's not the same as cigarettes and alcohol."

Zilos-note: Ya, cause it's relatively harmless!

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Burninbrooke

I'm sure this guys problems had nothing to do with the fact that his parents refused to even discuss his true problem, schizophrenia. Must be nice to have a serious mental condition and everyone else pretends like it doesn't exist, must make you feel just a tad bit more crazy. Poor guy......

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Unregistered

Ok, it was not some pre existing mental condition, or the antique ideology of mental illness, oh it was that devil weed. Ok, think what you want, it it an almost free country.

ChronicSmoke7

OMG that is horrible, just more of people's ills blamed on reefer.

frolic

The misguided efforts of law enforcement, the government and the media concerning marijuana have misguided this woman and her unfortunate family. People with mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other disfunctions often use marijuana as a self-prescribed medecine to treat depression and to calm an otherwise confused mind. The liklihood is the marijuana also helped the man deal with the doctors prescriptions which cause some real problems (see Tardive Dyskinesia).

 

Cassius

That's the problem right there.

You can't really blame the woman, as most people are gullible and will believe almost anything if you provide them enough circumstantial evidence to latch onto. But the DOCTOR should have known better.

Actually, she did know better. She knew that this person would latch onto this supposition as an accurate diagnosis, and everyone involved would nod their heads solemnly, cursing the devil weed for their own inability to relate to him, to bring him out into the world and show him it wasn't such a scary place.

But they couldn't do that, they'd much rather blame weed than themselves for not helping her brother to become a productive member of society.

AT MOST, the weed "triggered" his downfall. That is possible, if he truly has schizophrenia. But it's still supposition. And even if it were true, weed didn't CAUSE his downfall, only triggered it. But I don't believe it triggered it, either.

Marijuana and scapegoat are becoming more and more synonymous with each passing day.

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hempy

about 15 years ago they( doctors/cops/socailworkers) blamed my mental illness on weed.Not that i was poor/ injuried and my disfuntional drunk parents pertended i wasnt injuried just lazy( i have been exspoed to h2s gas and got nerve injuries i didnt "look" injuried).So they gave me chloriapromazine (miss spelt like thorizine though) turns out it was my thyriod was under produceing . now i got Tardive Dyskinesia from massive overdoses causeing narcalepsy (falling asleep ever 30 secs for 2 to 3 secs for 6 weeks have neck injury too from falling down so much). when givin thyrioxine i was better in less than 48 hours. i still somke pot 26 years after 4 crippling injurys 4 operations and devolopeing fibermyalgia and thyriod problems
(sorry about bad spelling english my fuorth langauge) im a sucessfull HVAC engineer and run a large hempshop .
some one once said while my arm was in a cast "if yuor so smart how come u aint rich" well im a millionaire now and yuor still stuiped!

Buzzby

This is like trying to relate a social drinker to someone so messed up that they put away two quarts of scotch a day. The guy obviously had some serious demons he was trying to drown out.


I've tried to talk like a Rasta but I always pass out before I can smoke enough. Who's to say he's not John the Baptist? (I went to high school with Drew the Baptist. )


Is that like being drawn-and-quartered? I used to take sections in Biology class. My victims were already dead, though. I think this family has a very perverse sense of humor.


If I lived with her I'd do the same, just to get some peace and quiet. Come to think of it, I already do!


Note that this was long before there was any scientific evidence (however specious) that there was a connection between marijuana and schizophrenia.


I'd concur with that diagnosis!


But, obviously, not to himself. Marijuana must have served some purpose in his life. I'd guess that it helped to keep the demons at bay.

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Cassius

People like to blame innocuous things because of their own denial. I bet she'd be surprised to know how inaccurate her "straight as a die" appraisal of her other brothers are.

smoking_joe_lee

Buzzby got this one 100% correct. I could not have said it better, nor do I believe anyone else could. But remember, it is only human nature to seek simple answers to complex problems. If only we could do so!

This is smoking joe...