Johnny Stack first inhaled marijuana at the age of 14 when his home state of Colorado in the US licensed retail sales of the drug in 2014.
He told his mother, Laura Stack, about trying the drug and, while concerned, she too had tried cannabis when she was young.
On Wednesday she gave the keynote speech at a lecture, hosted by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), called “Cannabis and Young Minds, what every parent should know”.
Ms Stack said that when her son started using she had no knowledge of the increasing potency and availability of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the main psychoactive substance found in cannabis – in a range of products since legalisation.
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She recounted her son’s descent into addiction and psychosis. He became irritable and abusive and, having been always a bright student, his performance in school suffered. He lost scholarships to universities. His parents put locks on their doors at home because they were afraid of him.
He moved out at 18 years of age, and while still a student became a drug dealer.
In 2019 when he was 19 he admitted to his parents that the drug had damaged his brain. She said hetold her: “I want you to know you were right. You told me marijuana would hurt my brain. It’s ruined my mind and my life, and I’m sorry. I love you.” He was by then suffering paranoid psychosis. Three days later he killed himself.
Ms Stack said she founded “Johnny’s Ambassadors”, a non-profit organisation, to educate teens and parents about the potential effects of cannabis on brain development and mental health and about the risk of suicide.
She warned of the danger of hexahydrocannabinol (HHC), a new semi-synthetic cannabinoid product that is chemically like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Ms Stack said the aim of her advocacy was not to criminalise young people “caught with a small amount of weed in their pocket”, but to make policymakers aware of the links between cannabis and psychosis and the increase in potency of drugs since licensing of retail sales of the drug and its derivatives.
She stressed the importance of educating young people about the dangers of cannabis products and particularly the danger of taking cannabis at ages when their brains were still developing.
Consultant psychiatrist Mary Cannon, professor of psychiatric epidemiology and youth mental health at the RCSI, said Beaumont Hospital in Dublin received a young patient experiencing psychosis as a result of such products every two to three weeks.
Speakers in the audience spoke of their own children and battles with addiction to cannabis and they told of their fears that their children were developing mental health difficulties. Some parents became emotional as they spoke of the possibility of their children being suicidal.
