Archbishop of Sydney

The Great Brain Robbery

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
10 July 2005

About ten years ago I listened to a secondary school principal talk about teenagers and drugs.  She was head of a school in one of the worst places for teenage suicide and knew first hand of the suffering from drugs.  One of her children had been involved for a while.

She had one particularly disturbing local statistic.  The autopsies had discovered that every teenage suicide had traces of marijuana in their blood.

For a long time many argued fiercely that cannabis was less harmful than alcohol, that getting “stoned” did little harm and could produce beautiful insights.  I have been accused of abusing my authority as archbishop for highlighting the bad effects of marijuana.  More recently some argued that the situation was still unclear, the jury was still out.

No longer.  The scientists have given a clear verdict of “guilty”.

Trevor Grice was in Sydney recently to publicise the book he wrote with Tom Scott in New Zealand called “The Great Brain Robbery” (Allen and Unwin).

It has been a best seller there, 30,000 copies sold, read widely by both parents and children and is now the book stolen most frequently from public libraries!

There are three sections.  The first talks of the problems parents and teenagers encounter, especially with cannabis and ordinary people give their experience of the hazards and tragedies of drug use.  The second section lists the ingredients, effects and dangers of thirteen drugs, ranging from alcohol to steroids.  Then there follows a final section on “the Hard Science”, how nerve impulses are generated, transmitted and interfered with in the brain.  There is also a list of suggested reading and a glossary of terms.

Grice and Scott use humour (Cocaine is God’s way of telling you that you have too much money), cartoons and diagrams to explain what drugs do to the body, the chemical vandalism of the brain.

They explain why teenagers should wait until they are over the seven year ladder between the onset of puberty and when the brain’s hardwiring has fully matured.  There is no short cut to happiness through chemistry; for every high there is a low and long term abuse can bring long term damage.

They show that science today is quite clear about the long term effects of marijuana, sometimes 50 times more powerful now than its 1960 predecessor.

Marijuana damages memory storage, which is critically important in learning and impairs the ability to drive a car, often without us realising this.  A Swedish study showed that heavy cannabis users were six times more likely to develop schizophrenia.  The drug impairs the body’s ability to grow and repair itself and is particularly dangerous for children born to marijuana using mothers e.g. inducing a tenfold increase in leukaemia.  It could also accelerate brain ageing.

This work is full of scientific facts, clearly and sympathetically written.  Useful for parents, teachers and especially teenagers.