Teenage rugby player cut off penis while high on skunk, says father who wants drug made Class A

 2 June 2017 

The teenager's father is backing Lord Monson's call for skunk to be reclassified  
Credit:Matthew Fearn/PA wire

Ateenage rugby player cut off his own penis and stabbed his mother while high on skunk, his father has revealed, as he called for the drug to be reclassified.

The father, named only as Nick because he wants to remain anonymous as his son is rebuilding his life, is backing Lord Nicholas Monson's campaign to have skunk reclassified from a class B to a class A drug and for the traditional weaker form of cannabis to be decriminalised.

Lord Monson launched his call following the suicide of his 21-year-old son Rupert, who was addicted to skunk.

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What do police in weed-friendly places say?

Cannabis harm prevention messages are essential, according to police in places where the drug has been decriminalised. Government, police and health agencies need clear guidelines for public campaigns on preventing harm from cannabis use, according to new research from Massey University. Front line police officers she interviewed in the Netherlands and states of Colorado and Oregon in the United States, where recreational cannabis use is not an offence, provided insights on how their communities responded with cannabis legally available.

They said that contrary to expectations, legalising the drug did not eliminate crime related to selling it, or gangs from continuing to profit from its sale.

All of her interviewees had cannabis law reform presented as a positive change for police, yet – as one officer said, "we just have not seen all the wonderful promises that were made to us."

Others observed cannabis was a gateway to harder drugs, and one officer expressed concern that the legal cannabis industry was attempting to target children to create a future market.

Front-line police officers she interviewed noted the following issues:

• the enduring role organised crime plays in profiting from cannabis
• inconsistent police policies are exploited, resulting in erosion of perceived police effectiveness
• driving while cannabis-impaired is a largely unmitigated risk, which may be a significant factor in vehicle crashes
• cannabis regularly misused by youth causes learning difficulties and leads to poor social outcomes
• it is important, and sometimes difficult, to get harm-prevention messaging right

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WHO’s NEXT? Jihadi Potheads: DR MAX PEMBERTON asks if marijuana is a factor in jihadi murders?

What was going through Salman Abedi’s mind when he made that journey to Manchester Arena on Monday night? How does someone do something so unspeakably evil as to slaughter and grievously injure innocent young children in this way?

Was he a psychopath? Was he evil? I do not know the answer but I do know, as the Mail reports today, that according to his friends Abedi was a frequent and heavy cannabis smoker.

Studies into the personality type of would-be jihadi terrorists have found some recurring themes that make an individual ‘ripe’ for radicalisation. They tend to feel angry, alienated or disenfranchised.

There is also a strong sense of victimhood and that they are fighting for a social injustice.

They have a poor sense of identity and tend to be ‘adolescent’ and petulant. This kind of personality type, combined with cannabis use, surely produces an individual more receptive to the kind of hate-filled rhetoric peddled by radical Islamists.

For too long, we have ignored the terrible toll of this drug. Too many people have dismissed cannabis as harmless — something to help you relax and chill — and that an individual should be free to buy and use as they choose.

Now, more than ever, we need to wake up to a pernicious substance that ruins not just the lives of those that take it, but countless others around them in ways we might never have imagined.

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Dr Randall's letter exposes truth of pot legalization

In 2012, Coloradans voted to pass Colorado Amendment 64 which led to the state-wide legalization of recreational marijuana beginning in January of 2014. Since then, the number of medical and recreational dispensaries in Colorado has grown to more than double the number of McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. While individual counties could and did choose to abstain from allowing recreational marijuana sales, my county, Pueblo, was one of many that embraced Amendment 64 and the projected benefits of recreational legalization, even unofficially rebranding itself the “Napa Valley of Pot”. This led to an influx of people looking to smoke without the risk of legal consequences and to cash in on the burgeoning “pot economy”. Unfortunately, many of these people arrived only to find that the supply of marijuana-related jobs was far outweighed by the demand, and few had backup plans. Since 2014, Pueblo’s homeless population has tripled, and our low-income housing have occupancy rates of 98% or more. We have seen a drastic increase in the number of homeless camps, and social services and outreach programs are buckling under the strain. Our medical infrastructure is also reaching critical mass. Out of the 160,000 residents of our community, roughly 115,000 are on Medicaid. As a result, we have been losing primary care providers at an alarming and unsustainable rate. The largest local clinic has been looking to hire 15 new doctors, but has only been able to hire 1 in the past two and a half years. My emergency medical group has been able to fill less than half of our open positions. The average wait time to see a new primary care provider is months with the wait for a specialist even longer, and many primary care physicians in the area are no longer taking new Medicaid patients. Watch THIS NOW! For more