Smoking skunk doesn’t ‘wreck your brain’ (Picture Getty)

On Friday, the anti-drug press went wild over a study which suggested that smoking skunk cannabis, ‘Wrecks brains’.

Except that’s not really what the study said, the NHS has pointed out.

The NHS responded to The Sun’s ‘simplistic’ headline, ‘”Scientists warn smoking ‘skunk’ cannabis wrecks brains,” saying that the paper had overstated the conclusions of the small academic study.


The NHS said, ’What this study doesn’t tell us is whether these structural changes do any harm or cause any negative mental health effects – which is why The Sun’s headline is too strong. The study simply didn’t look at this.’



‘Researchers used MRI scanners to scan the brains of 99 adults – some with psychosis, some without – looking for any links between small changes in their brain structure and their cannabis habits.

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‘They found users of skunk – as well as those who used any type of cannabis on a daily basis – had different structural changes in the corpus callosum, compared with those who smoked less or lower-strength strains.

‘The effects of cannabis use – both in the short and longer term – are not firmly established.’