The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has announced that she will promote a law “to protect minors from products derived from cannabis that are sold in different establishments” and that are “harmful to health” as well as “a scam” given that they are always put up for sale accompanied by posters “with a smile next to a marijuana leaf.”
“I wish we had powers to stop these establishments, which as you have seen, if you have traveled recently, have multiplied, have proliferated throughout the vast majority of large Western cities, the main ones in the world. You just have to see New York, any American city, Canada… to see what the streets are like, with a smell of decadence and slavery, and to see so many young people like zombies on its streets,” he noted below.
The regional leader has advanced this new legislative text during her speech at the First Mental Health Prevention Conference of the Community of Madrid, at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital, where she warned that “issues such as the legalization of cannabis” and has criticized that the Ministry of Health is “in favor of the supposedly medicinal use” of it.
Ayuso has maintained that, “although there are drugs that directly cause more deaths, such as fentanyl, marijuana is the one that destroys the most lives, especially that of young people” and has emphasized that “all those who fall for other drugs started with this ”.
Given this, he stressed that “the criteria of scientific societies, doctors, psychiatrists and people who, like teachers, have been working for decades to alleviate the consequences that marijuana leaves, especially among children and young people , it has to be heard.”
“Drugs are society’s number one public enemy. For decades, they have been the greatest brake on prosperity and freedom in the world to the point that they put an end to personal freedom,” she warned.
Cannabis, according to data from the addiction surveillance system of the Community of Madrid, in 2022, is the most consumed illegal drug among students aged 14 to 18 in the region. 27.8% have done it on some occasion, 21.8% in the last year and 14.5% in the last month. The average age of onset is 14.8 years
In its first edition, this meeting has discussed the risks associated with cannabis consumption on people’s mental health, with a team of professional experts from different hospitals in the region (Clínic San Carlos, Niño Jesús, Gregorio Marañón and 12 de Octubre ). All of them have participated in two tables, one on prevention in childhood and adolescence and another on the danger that this psychoactive substance has for people’s mental health, especially at an early age.
As detailed by the regional government, professionals have transferred the extensive scientific evidence available regarding the negative impact of cannabis on mental health and its pathogenic potential, particularly serious in the significant risk of psychosis, which can be multiplied by four and explain up to 10% of schizophrenia. Likewise, they have highlighted the increased risk of suicide and self-harming behavior derived from its consumption.