‘Cannabis does not give inspiration but self-deception’
RICHARD ADEBAYO is a consultant psychiatrist/clinical psychologist at Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Yaba, Lagos. In this interview with ANTHONIA OBOKOH, he explains what psychoactive substances are, clears misconceptions about their long term health damages to those who abuse them and offers solutions as to how to avert the dangers of abuse among teenagers and young adults. Excerpts:
What are some of the correlations between substance abuse and depression among the youths?
Chronic depression in young/teenagers tied to the use of psychoactive drugs or substances is on the increase in Nigeria. Abuse of these substances has thrown many teenagers and young people into depression, which is affecting the society today.
A psychoactive drug, Psychopharmaceutical, is a chemical substance that changes brain function and results in alterations of perception, mood, consciousness or behaviour. The general trend in the abuse of these psychoactive substances is an addiction whether to alcohol, marijuana, cannabis and the rest of them.
Teenagers or youths who are addicted to these psychoactive substances tend to make it an integral part of their lives and after a while, they start having the side effects or complications from the habits.
The initial benefits they think they derive, they now discover it’s a mirage that it is not real, a time will come when the reality dawns on them. At that moment, they have wasted their life on abusing these substances and are far behind their contemporaries, age mates, and acquaintances. What will happen eventually is self-blame, low self-esteem, low mood and of course depression.
Therefore, the trend is most people who have been hooked on drugs chronically end up being depressed and some do not stop at that level of depression, some actually commit suicide due to the hopelessness, helplessness and pessimism associated to the degree of depression.
It is common that people who have been hooked on drugs for a long time eventually end up attempting suicide or kill themselves out of depression.
However, initially, they will tell you that those drugs keep them going, make them high, they can argue that they need cannabis for inspiration; they believe it helps them do their work, but it is all self-deception.
In reality after prolonged chronic use, they realise that socio- economically, it has affected them, physiologically it has destroyed their bodies and psychologically they cannot live any life without those substances.
They look at themselves like they are just shadows of themselves; their lives have been wrecked, destroyed by those dangerous substances they have been taking for so long. Eventually they become depressed.
It is either they internalise it to themselves and become depressed or they externalise it to others by being aggressive to others by being violent to the society. They are those people who cause havoc; at times they turn the aggression to themselves by blaming themselves or eventually attempt suicide.
What is depression?
Depression is a huge disorder that affects the tone of emotion of an individual and the person feels unhappy, sad or sorrowful for a minimum period of two weeks.
If this sorrowful mood, sad feelings persist more than two weeks, an individual can be sorrowful or sad just for few days, and it is ok.
But if the person is not happy about some certain things and the low mood goes on beyond two weeks, with continuous sad feelings, loss of interest in people and things that make them tremble, we call it Anhedonia.
Anhedonia is a core symptom of major depressive disorder; therefore individuals experiencing this symptom can be diagnosed with depression, even in the absence of low/depressed mood.
It is also described as “lack of interest or pleasure”, but these can be difficult to discern given that people tend to become less interested in things which do not give them pleasure and of course weight loss, lack of appetite, sleep disruptions and many other symptoms, but those are the key things.
Depression last for two weeks and more, if it is less than that we do not regard that as depression. It is a normal turn of event that any individual can overcome.
Is depression common among Nigerian youths?
Yes, it is a very common disorder among the young/teenagers in Nigeria and it is often mixed because people think young / teenagers should not be depressed with the mind set of “what are they thinking about? What are their challenges? Are they working or paying rent?” But it goes beyond that, a lot of young/teenagers are depressed.
Sometimes, depression maybe the reason they take substances to cover up. This is obviously an unhelpful coping strategy or mechanism.
They feel since they are unhappy or sad, the only option is to keep themselves high by drinking and smoking, hanging out with friends. They engage in all these activities. Peer pressure is also part of it and they desire to do this to overcome their challenges or feelings.
Sometimes, depressions in young/teenagers are caused by parents. If the home is not stable, the child feels it and when poorly managed that child’s mood will be low for a long time.
So when the child is struggling to pick up with life and move on, they would start interacting, drinking, smoking and doing all sort of things due to influence from the company they keep and before you know it, that child becomes addicted to that lifestyle.
What are the health risks and later effects of abusing substances?
The health risks and later effects of taking substances is that it destroys the mind and the body, someone who smokes gets their lungs damaged, gets their liver disrupted, the gastro-intestinal track, stomach damaged and of cause they are psychoactive substances that can alter the functions of the brain.
So these substances affect their brain and before you know it, some of them start hallucinating later or behaving irrationally and they develop psychosis or develop a worse form of depression and that is part of the danger. Whatever way we look at it, being an addict to substance gives no reasonable gain.
Do psychoactive substances give inspiration?
Some believe that psychoactive substances will help them work more, give them energy or make them bold. You can still be high, bold, assertive and yourself without taking cannabis. The truth of the matter is that whatever benefits that they feel derived is for a short time, what lies ahead of that is far worse than the so-called benefits.
So having low self-esteem does not mean one has to be taking those substances to get corrected, there are better ways of improving yourself rather than smoking or drinking substances or doing drugs.
Any route of administering cannabis, marijuana by cooking, drinking or smoking is not beneficial to the body; it is inimical and dangerous to health.
This is part of misconceptions people have about psychoactive substances especially among the young. Cannabis does not give inspiration, inspiration comes from God. Like those musicians, I learnt from one of them that his so-called inspiration has led him to a mental break down. Cannabis disorganises not only the brains but the entire system.
However, cannabis can stop you if you do not stop it, at some point it starts affecting speech, behaviour and they become irrelevant to the society. That ends up increasing the number of patients at the psychiatric hospital.
Advice to the youths
We continue to enlighten them on this wrong notion they have that cannabis cannot be eliminated because it is accessible and cheap.
When people have utility knowledge and are properly aware that it is detrimental hopefully, they will run away from it.
That is why we partner with the media to enlighten people especially at the grassroot level. We do not want to wait until they are brought to the hospital after complications.
Before they imbibe such habits, we let them realise that drinking alcohol or smoking cannabis will never ever solve their depression or emotional problems.
When these young/teenagers are enlightened it will help them think twice and run away from danger or such lifestyle.
Many of our youths have gotten their future, destiny thwarted because they abused psychoactive substances. It is better they are enlightened further on this and stop the dangerous lifestyle.