Snippets Chapter 15 Monsters in the mirror

Chapter 15 ~ Monsters in the mirror ~ Can Cannabis cause Psychosis?  

"Let me just say from the very beginning that there is absolutely zero scientific evidence to prove that Cannabis can cause psychosis of any nature. The reason why ii get called to so many so called “dagga psychosis” cases is because many people have already used my Can Cannabis cause psychosis paper in the courts and this is why so many people have successfully had their silly cases thrown out of our courts here in Cape Town. There is lots of hearsay and deceit out there but definitely not even one scientific paper with any real evidence that can’t be argued against. So despite the fact that there is no solid evidence, those who continue to oppose legal Cannabis Medicine insist on continuing the ‘Reefer Madness’ campaign by issuing false statements with no evidence that Cannabis causes psychosis and therefore presumably leads to the onset of schizophrenia.  

It is my personal belief as a healer and a parent that smoking Cannabis is definitely not for young adolescents and teenagers who are then in their critical stages of brain development from puberty onwards to around age 27. Yes for sure some people who have been smoking Cannabis since early childhood (some as early as 7 years old) may experience some problems with their brains’ development.  This is not schizophrenia or psychosis this is delinquent abuse of a medicinal substance by minors in the absence of parental guidance.

Today we have many drug addicts cloaked as cancer and mental health patients. Be that as it may these drug addicts are also patients and desperately need healing which Cannabis can give them. But it is true that abuse of illicit recreational drugs like cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine can result in cancers and some mental conditions but again this is not schizophrenia this is substance abuse which damages and ultimately destroys the immune and nervous systems. It has been proven that there is a direct link between immune breakdown and psychosis. In my experience ii cannot tell you how many patients ii have met who are in ‘rehab’ paid for by their parents or employers, where they state they are in there for Cannabis “abuse” but actually they are in there for cocaine, KHAT, CAT, heroin, crack cocaine and other illicit substances. Apparently Cannabis is a softer ‘blow’ for parents and bosses alike and this type of behaviour leads to distorted statistics in terms of addiction.

The term ‘schizophrenia’ originated in Switzerland and it literally means ‘splitting of the mind’ which was always intended to refer to a variance between thought and action and not to multiple or ‘split’ personalities.

The conflict in man and human duality has ensured that most people have at least two sides to their own personality and let us be honest if you observe people closely you don’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that people display different personalities at different times under different circumstances. Have you ever noticed how much you can learn about a person when they don’t get what they want? Have you noticed that if you spend long enough time with someone you realise that they actually wake up in different moods and with different feelings each new day. If you really think about it, what we refer to as our ‘personalities’ is really just an arrangement of habits and behaviour patterns which we have developed mostly to deal with trauma. Sometimes we have to be honest and admit that maybe people don’t actually change we just never really knew who they were in the first place. So we must ask ourselves…Who are we outside of our pain? 

Factors like pain, stress, poisoness chemicals in the food and water supply all these kinds of things can actually contribute to personality changes in certain susceptible people which is actually a lot of people. People naturally have different moods and personalities and different tolerance levels for other irritating personalities. This is not psychosis and personally ii believe this is all part of the human condition just like addiction. In other words it is actually quite normal and not really a mental condition.

Sometimes we have to realise that it is hard to change ourselves, to improve and develop our own selves, so imagine how difficult it is to change other people, ii don’t think we really stand a chance. There are many people who refuse to remain victims of cultural and social conditioning and sadly the real victims consider these people to be ‘crazy’ and these people take this as a compliment, ii am very much one of these crazies because ii don’t believe that any of us needs a leader…we all know instinctively what needs to be done when we wake up in the morning for us to survive. When ii say that we don’t need a leader ii mean that we should be allowed to use our own brains and think for ourselves.  This is one of the biggest problems in the world that so many people no longer think for themselves and ii always say to people that ii don’t want them to think like me ii just want them to think. Period!

We have to realise that egotism is an empire with nothing to offer but a thorny crown. We have to learn to live our own truth which comes from a place of humility in the soul. Duality is really a state of separation so you could say that it is the opposite of reality and this is the cause of all of our suffering. Duality is a product of the mind and therefore the ego. This is where we ‘split’ or divide life into “right and wrong”, “good and bad”, “pretty or ugly”, “holy or sinful”, “love and hate” and so on. Because of this style of social conditioning our lives have become centred on judgement, blame, guilt and fear and to many people this could definitely resemble psychosis."