Doctor says cannabis is a leading cause of mental illness in Antigua & Barbuda

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A tour guide shows marijuana growing openly in a flower garden

Ganja is a leading cause of mental illness in Antigua & Barbuda.

That was revealed by Dr. Teri-Ann Joseph, the Senior House Officer at Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital, during an interview on state media today.

“We are sadly losing a generation of young men and we seem to be losing a generation of young men to marijuana”, she said when asked what most often lands someone in the psychiatric hospital.

Dr. Joseph emphasized she was speaking about “pure marijuana, I don’t want you to think it’s mixed, pure marijuana and so that’s some cause of concern for us”.

An amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act allowed residents to legally possess up to 15 grams of cured marijuana and four marijuana plants for personal use.

People searching for ways to cope with challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic were warned to stay clear of illicit drugs “even marijuana, people think that it’s good it’s going to help you relax, but trust me, there is something in it called THC and that damages the brain”.

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55 COMMENTS

  1. She clearly doesn’t realize the youth use Cannabis as an aid for preexisting mental issues that are ignored by the same people who truly believe weed makes you go insane.

  2. Typical, uneducated statement from a 3rd world “Dr”. Her claims have zero scientific backing.

    • Thank you, she should lock herself in one of room the next time she goes to work, she’s the real looney.

    • Its obvious that her patients aren’t honest with her. If you knew what the young ppl are really doing right now. Cocaine and LCD. And among young people they talk like its nothing. But people like Dr. Teri-Ann are quick to point to cannabis because it is the most openly used. The fact of the matter is what people don’t talk about that is causing mental illness.

  3. O lord. Me never laugh so hard in my life. I didn’t know I could come here to find jokes. Y’all just post everything without facts nuh..hahaha. ahh yes Antigua

  4. For those who smoke cannabis, you would have a tough time convincing them that anything is wrong with it. I have long advocated that though there might be some medicinal value to cannabis, it is not in the form of smoking. Smoking ANYTHING is bad for you. The doctor is obviously speaking from where she sits at the mental home and she must have seen the effects of cannabis on many of the patients admitted to that institution. Stop beating up the messenger. Listen to the message please!

    • I agree. Smoking anything is bad. But saying it is the LEADING cause of mental illness? Haha cmon…if it’s the leading illness..it just became that way? What took so long to point it out if she been noticing it for years. Do they also know that enough badmind people around will add something extra to your joint and mess you up? I’m not going to say that cannabis is all good for you becaus we know there is no such thing, but don’t spread this nonsense unless she has scientific evidence backing up her claims, that’s all.

    • So she ask mentality ill patients questions, and arrive with this conclusion then pass it off as factual, and you believe? Well more out dan wah eeen.

  5. The Jamaican’s and D.R.’s are bringing this marijuana poison into our Antigua shores. We need to start taking this imported mess and poison away, and kick it out. How much longer is the Prime Minister of Antigua going to allow this poison and poison people from other ‘nations’ infect our beautiful Antigua island-nation?

    I think it is time we get serious and finally implement massive immigration reform. We need to deport at least 50% of Jamaican’s and 50% of D.R.’s – and then restrict any future immigration from these drug producing ‘countries’.

    • This have to be the STUPIDEST piece of text i have ever attempted to read. I am disappointed and utterly ashamed to share nationality or even species with what ever it is that typed this comment.

  6. This interview took place on ABS and she was speaking about the abuse of the drug.

  7. Correlation is not causation. Professionals need to not take the lazy way out: dig deeper.

    In any event, the government, the country and the world have moved way past this outdated, prejudiced view.

    The reality is that many people look down on those who smoke marijuana, and it has nothing to do with health reasons. The level of scorn is somehow greater than for people who drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.
    This article is to me actually a deterrent to seeking treatment at the facility if you smoke weed.

  8. Lmfao hear all the mad weed heads who are blatantly blind to the side effect of marijuana. You never hear too much ah one subn can kill you? Many of you potheads can barely remember what happened yesterday much less to be bashing someone with a doctorate. You guys do not use marijuana medicinally as prescribed. You’re just blindly smoking. It message with your brain. Some ahryou get up every morning noon & night fa bun. That’s an addiction and that in itself is a mental issue. Lmao all you mad crazy people.

    • You just enforced the old concieved notion that ‘potheads’ dont remember anything. Just more people misinformed. If you had any idea how many people smoked that had higher education, good jobs, & overall nice intelligent people you’d probably poo your pants. Get outta the dark ages with the stereotypes already. Not to mention anyone knocking marijuana as unhealthy should totally abstain from everything. Its better than alcohol, cigarettes, any prescribed opiate, & sugar! More health issues than if you ONLY smoked weed.

  9. i dont think its the weed i think its what is mixed with it that makes some of the youth act like they dumb and crazy. i drink the tea and will continue to do so as it has m any benefits and does nothing bad to my mental health

  10. Finally, a Caribbean medical doctor with grit and courage. But the warning has come too late. We have already lost a generation of deluded “drug heads” and we are in the process of losing another. This senseless betrayal is worse than criminal neglect, for it is the willfully neglect of informed adults who surrendered to an escapist subculture that preferred narcissistic temporary euphoria to the manly discipline of facing and meeting the challenges of reality. Cowards choose the easy path because they lack character. Real heroes change their world rather than escape from it.

    • Please deal with the bones in the closets of the Religious Orders, from The Flavian Dynasty to Rome to Capitaline Hill which promotes such things, as Inqusitions, Pedophilia, Homosexuality, Corruption, Indoctrination to control the thought processes, of HUEmans, all for profits and gain by Religious Institutions.

    • If you were more educated on the matter it would help. Marijuana is one of, or the only, drug that brings you into the moment. Most drugs do provide the escape, marijuana is not that kind of drug. Its 2021, need to actually educate yourself on the matter. Many countries of done a lot of research and are far more progressed in the benefits of the plant.

  11. We need to look into parenting and the way parents and loved ones close to these youths treat them, especially when they find out they are cannabis user’s. That’s the main driver behind mental illess the social environment they are in. Also people need to realize cannabis is vastly different from tobacco and cannot be understated. Any form of consumption of cannabis is medical use.

  12. ZERO empirical evidence to support this baseless claim. I’m disappointed this is even on here, it’s 2020, research before posting. It’s misinformation at its best!

  13. There is a lot of research on this plant now. I think the good doctor would do well to do one of these medical marijuana courses online. These So called ‘mental illnesses’ can be prevented and treated.

  14. This is about Naturopathic versus Allopathic Medicines, and the fact, that HEMP both Male and female are contributing to healthier lifestyles, thus, not allowing folks like this doctor to keep using synthetic pharmaceuticals pushed by the AMA, and Big Pharma, to keep milking Governments and the People, of billions of dollars.

    Here are just a few things which have, and are still contributing to the mental stability, of the Nation…

    1…CLASSISM(da big dutty foot elephant inna de room).

    2…Indoctrination through religious Orders which promotes pedophilia, same sex marriages, and Government corruption.

    3…PPM – Piss Poor Management of the Peoples monies in the Treasury, with lack of accountability, investigations, prosecutions and convictions( de evidence dey, fram Bloom Cooper to IHI to Medical Bebefits etc).

    And, a list could be made to wrap around the Nation, ten times plus.

    RASpect…

  15. The good doctor has forced me to research on the THC that she mentioned in the article, then I can comment further……good article Doc..this SIDE of the marijuana story needs to be told even more ACROSS THE GLOBE and let people come to their own conclusions after getting the information..

    • Classic evasion technique that says more about the prejudice of the author than his willingness to face stubborn and unsettling reality.The abuse of religion by depraved men is no fault of that religion if they violate the teachings and principles of its founder. That’s why men are never to be the standard of truth. God’s Word is the canon by which all religious movements and institutions most be judged. When this is done with respect to the Church of Rome I share your sentiments that it is apostate and has done irreparable to True Christianity. But the judgement of the great whore is coming as the apostle John so graphically depicts in the book of Revelation. But this is not a religious debate about the Catholic the abuses of the Catholic Church, this is about the damaging medical effects of recreational use of a hallucinogenic mind-altering drug that has ruined so many minds and lives. Its advocates refuse to face the real facts that outside a temporary euphoric high it weakens character, atrophies the mind and destroys morality. I have yet to meet a prolong user who has no gradually deteriorated in mind or body until he or she had become almost unrecognizable. They age to become a spectacle of skeleton and skin. But even worse is their moral and spiritual decline. They become empty shells sustained only by the use of an idolatrous weed and the worship of a deified man who himself denied this abomination. When a weed become the nexus between a man and his god, he has entered the world of the occult and dabbling in the infernal world of the forbidden .

      • @Pastor, your dribble is worst, than that which was spoken of, at length by the likes of Jim Jones.
        Your indoctrination and hypocrisy is oozing like pus from an unattended sore!

        • I find your comments amusing and guite irrational. But I’m not surprised, you must be a long time marijuana user. As you should know, for you claim to be an expert with knowledge beyond that of a qualified medical doctor who deals with such mental disorders regularly, THC destroys the user’s ability to reason logically and think critically. I suspect the process has already begun in your case. I counsel you to seek the good doctor’s help, you may yet avoid Clarehall. But I have an even better idea, why don’t You just visit the Clarehall facility and have an honest objective conversation with the nurses and inmates about the horrors of marijuana use. A real truly honest man seeking the truth would investigate the unassailable empirical facts demonstrated in the broken lives and damaged mlnds of his own people before allowing his prejudice or greed to close his mind to the real facts. I have seen the damage in my own family. I see it daily in Antigua. I see where I live. A lie always seem to get ahead of truth, but it eventually loses out in the end— either on this side of life, but certainly in the next. Man’s day of folly and falsehood will end. We are all headed for a personal encounter with the true God. In that day no cloud of smoke will hide or save us. It will us and God without the imposition of an artificial high. Now that’s truth! That’s reality!

          • @Pastor…plain and simple!
            One thing is certain; as, it pertains to the staples, of life…
            A…food
            B…Shelter
            C…clothing

            We can have a competition, to see who’s competent, and stable!
            Put tools in your hands, to produce food, and build a shelter, and I guarantee you, I’ll run circles around you, with your doctrines, and collection plates, in hand dressed in a polyester suit, in 95*F weather, begging for donations.
            I eat, live and thrive by the sweat of my brow, not by bamboozling the unsuspecting, and uneducated with nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

    • Ras Moo you must humble yourself, get off your high and learn how to apply reason and logic to issues. Arguing from passion and malice defeats your purpose from its inception. I have not seen you offer one sensible answer to the issue of the debate. Instead you go off on tangents that have no bearing whatsoever on the subject or else you employ pejorative language to attack an straw man that exists only in your acrid mind. King Agrippa said to Paul, “much learning hath made thee mad,” but I say to you “too much marijuana has made you irrational”. You pretend to a level of knowledge that is clearly outside your sphere of understanding and you list points that are unrelated to the topic of discussion. You need the sound mind that only Christ can give. Repent and trust Him and your mind will be renewed through the power of the Holy Spirit. You will be enlightened in the ways of God and the demon of marijuana will lose its grip on you. Then visit the Clarevue facility and I guarantee that your whole perspective will change. You would see the dupes of marijuana through eyes of compassion and love. The lure of filthy lucre that drives selfish men to exploit the weaknesses of their fellow compatriots will lose its power. And your true love for your African brothers and sisters would move you to expose this whole sordid money-making scam for what it really is the exploitation of the poor by vested self interest. Remember that the biblical Jah warned the the love of money is the root all forms of evil. Remember a blessing is promised to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, not marijuana.

  16. Not saying the Doc is wrong but why tf y’all on here calling ppl pot heads and drug heads I know bankers,accountants and lawyers that bun weed so no need to be on here judging that’s y’all problem y’all to envious in y’all ms

  17. Is mixed them mixed up the God bless Ganja with man made cocaine that mess with them brain. Crazy house located closed to the crackhead houses and supplies so I dont want to hear nonsense! Thank You!

  18. Thank you Doc for speaking the truth. Just as predicted the ganja-worshippers would attack you. They REFUSE to hear that SMOKING CANNIBIS is UNHEALTHY. In fact, any kind of smoking is bad!!! They can ridicule your statement all they want and bury their heads in the sand. However, the facts are the facts.

    • …smoking, is miniscule, as it pertains to the multiple uses, of both the Male & Female, species of this edible, versatile family of the HEMP family.

      In A Short Take…take a peep or peek, at such things, as CBD oils, to liquid infused spritzer, to skin absorption oils.

      The good doctor with all good intent($) are, very much lacking in research, or just being deceptive due to $$$$ dollars from donors, and sponsors!

      Any which way, we are moving ahead with pressing, for further Legislation, to bring HEMP, both male & female into the same category, as other vegetation grown in the Nation.
      One outdated opinion, and one ‘…kee’ nar tap de show!

      Why aren’t you, and everyone else going after, other activities, such as the Whorehouses, crack, heroin, opioid, rat cooking and infested food establishments, causing things from obesity to homosexuality to, “allegedly” Human Trafficking?

  19. People like yo like to lump cannabis with this “any smoke is bad for you” but then fail to say how cannabis smoke is bad for you and go into detail, name the lung diseases associated… I’ll be waiting. In fact cannabis is used to treat and reverse lung diseases.

    • You know you dont have to smoke it for it to affect you , or treat you try make canna butter, or oil

  20. Most things affect ppl differently in different ways, some ppl dont realize that , when I get depressed and I smoke to me it gets worse, but I smoke it when I’m tired or and have pain and aches it relaxes me so I can understand

    • …U haffu, overstand de strain or class.
      It’s not, a one fit for all. Simple, like food, which it is and not to mention, the male plant, and its uses!

      Simple, again learn which is good for work, rest, exercise, eating, dancing, meditation etc.
      Hemp Is Food….

  21. Marijuana like many things ingested could have a serious side effects.For instance drinking liquor has its side effects after one drink on many persons.If this Doctor is involved with young persons at the Psychiatric Hospital in Antigua.She would then be speaking from first hand knowledge,not hear say.This has not one damn thing to do with science.It has to do with Facts.So do not cuss the Doctor,Marijuana users.She is stating what she has been seeing at Clarevue.

  22. The courageous doctor’s unpopular disclosure is based on raw empirical facts and data. Talk to teachers, nurses, doctors, police who engage this issue in the primary and secondary public schools, counselors, social workers, the workers at the Clarevue center, moms and dads whose hearts have been unconsolably broken as they watch their son or daughter waste away as if under the spell of some mystic evil power, recovering marijuana addicts who daily fight the enslaving power of this hellish drug— there is your raw irrefutable, empirical evidence! But I believe the most powerful confirmatory proof is to visit the Clarevue facility itself and have an honest,open,non-judgmental personal talk with both the doctors and nurses who care for these ruined addicts and the inmates themselves. Some people cannot face the horrors they have helped create so they hide in a smoke-filled world of detached reality buoyed by an artificial high that offers a selfish delusive escape. Destructive self pleasure and covetous greed is at the root of this defense of the indefensible. Even a blind using his other senses can ‘see’ the problem.The problem is that grave if we examine the real facts. The evidence is all around. It is only the willfully blind who refuse to see the irreparable mental, social and even physical damage that the recreational use of marijuana has inflicted on the vulnerable children and youth of this country and the wider Caribbean as a whole. It has brought a curse and not a blessing. How many more will fall under the enchanting influence of lts mirage spell?Has wisdom left the corridors of learning? Have we boycotted common sense? Then why have we sold out truth to worship at the altars of Eros and Mammom? We are at the edge of precipice and below is a fathomless dark pit. Listen…listen…listen…do you hear what I hear? The wails of mothers crying for their children lost in the airy world of ecstatic marijuana delusion and there is no one with the compassion or courage to halt this madness but this bold iconic champion for truth—the good doctor. My only fear is that she may lose her job or position because she refuses to sing the same jaded old song that extolls the virtues of a mind altering hallucinogenic drug that is a blight and a curse to this lost generation of narcissistic cowards who have made tolerance and silence the guardians of their future. But I suspect that this will be a future that we will live to regret.

  23. she works at clarevue , all of her patients are mentally incapacitated. id be more inclined to believe her if she sees all marijuana smokers in this 108 sq miles and makes deductions from there.

  24. @Pastor, do you have to write a novel everytime you comment? Talk about someone high on themselves & ‘preachie’. Ugh you make me wanna smoke a bowl, lol

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