My bother and cannabis

2009.03.15

The reason I became involved in research into the use of cannabis was, merely, to write articles for publication. However, as I began to investigate further, I realised that some of the information proved to touch me much nearer home. In 1983 my brother died as a result of a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 27. For several years before his death he'd experienced numerous, socially related, problems. All the family was aware he was using dope. He'd recently graduated from university and was generally considered a very intelligent young man with a bright future ahead of him (Perhaps my favourite of my brother's sayings was "Children can make a playground out of any task"). Gradually, however, his behaviour started to take on strange and unsociable aspects. He could change from his usual genial outgoing self to being insulting and unpredictable in the wink of a eye. His behaviour brought him to the attention of law enforcement bodies and, though we, as a family, begged him to seek medical advice, he refused to accept that he had a problem.

I'm sure that his girlfriend leaving him didn't help matters. That said, his state of mind went, gradually, from worse to worse. Many examples of his strange behaviour are, to this day, too hurtful to recount. Eventually, his brushes with the law resulted in a stay "at Her Majesty's pleasure" in Armley Jail, Leeds. Whilst serving his sentence he was accused, among other things, of assault on a fellow prisoner, as well as that of a prison officer.

On his release we, as a family, decided we had no option but to arrange that he be committed under a Section 60 of the Mental Health Act. He was, therefore, hospitalised in a specialist ward of the local infirmary. During his stay he was treated by, among other things, electric shock "therapy" and a medication called "Largactyl" ("enough, to quote a fellow patient, to kill a couple of horses"). Nonetheless, we were persuaded that he was in the right hands. As his condition deteriorated, he was transferred to a specialist unit in the Midlands.

Reassured that he was being treated by the most qualified specialists in the country, we began to feel that there was light at the end of the tunnel. My parents were encouraged, one January Sunday evening, to receive a 'phone call from him in which he told them he was feeling better and had enjoyed a game of rugby that afternoon. Two days later my parents had a call from the hospital to inform them that my brother had collapsed and was in a deep coma. In the early hours of that January morning we made the trip to his bedside. He was later diagnosed by two cerebral specialists as brain dead and we were informed that his life-support machine would be turned off.

On the morning of his funeral I received a letter from him saying "I think I'll be home soon despite the danger". So, how much influence did his drug habit have on the eventual outcome? Experts have varying opinions but what happened to me in 2002 bears a strange resemblance to my brother's experience.