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Back in the 30s, there was a melodramatic little propaganda film called Rifa Madness. In no uncertain terms, it thundered on about the evils of the demon weed, that mind-destroying drug marijuana. Naturally enough, hip youngsters thought it was hilarious. They still do. But as it turns out, Rifa Madness is no laughing matter. It really does exist. Wait till you see the latest, the most comprehensive research. It proves cannabis really can cause psychosis, can wreck young brains. Not only that, the drug itself is stronger, super strong. And the users are younger. Much younger. 10 and 11 years old. Dope, weed, pot. Call it what you want. Smoking cannabis has been considered a rite of passage for generations. But that might have to change because this drug is much stronger and more dangerous than ever before. If the concentrations of cannabis continue to rise and the availability of cannabis is how it is, it will definitely have a bigger impact than cocaine or heroin, absolutely. This drug can permanently damage brains. Yeah, that I see all the time. Is there a link between this drug and suicide? Oh yes. 21-year-old Lachlan Preece has everything to live for. He's smart, sporty and popular. But three years ago, his life turned to hell. Cannabis sent Lachlan mad. How often would you smoke? Towards the end, it was pretty much every day. How many times a day? You know, two or three joints a day. Towards the end of 2002, the dope started altering Lachlan's mental state. He was becoming manic and delusional, suffering from cannabis psychosis. I felt that, like, everything was just so easy and I could conquer incredible goals and I'll just do it like that. And then one day in his bedroom, Lachlan snapped, launching himself into a three-day psychotic bender that would end in a psychiatric ward. I was starting a new life for myself, so I had to, you know, just everything had to go, everything, all the old stuff, you know, I just wanted to completely live in the moment and the past just didn't matter, so I destroyed it all and yeah, smashed this mirror and, you know, blood everywhere and that's when my parents came in and saw the, I'm just standing here and the room's completely, you know, completely trashed, looks like a bomb's hit it and there's just blood everywhere and blood dripping out of my hand and they came in and I was actually in such a good mood that I was smiling. It's a tiny room but it took me 12 hours to clean it up, he'd done so much damage and just washing the blood off the walls and things like that was just heart-wrenching for me and I just thought, you know, our lives had been turned upside down. You must have felt as though you were losing your son. Yeah, it did seem for a while, like, you know, you do panic and you're just wondering, you know, where's he gone? Because you couldn't get to him. I basically just started, didn't know where I was walking, but I just started walking in the direction of the sun. When you're kind of manic and you're at that point in your psychosis, you just believe that something will come up. You go outside and you go, I'm just going to walk, something will happen, I don't know what yet. For some reason I thought that there was going to be this massive, massive party being held for me at Rod Laver Arena. I walked to Rod Laver Arena, I think, and just kept walking and kept walking and then I got sidetracked and went to the Yarra. I could see footsteps just stepping in the ground next to me, and even though no one was there, but I of course just thought there was, you know, there was someone there. Stuff like that you definitely know is psychosis. We were trawling the streets looking for him in the dark because we didn't know where he was and I just saw him in the middle of a really busy road near us, just playing chicken with the traffic. And I look back on those things thinking at any point during that 24 hours he could have easily died. You have no doubt that marijuana played a major role in your psychosis? Yeah, yeah, definitely. No doubt at all. It's now clear that what was once considered a socially acceptable drug is anything but. And it's research that's taking place here in Sweden that shows just how dangerous cannabis can be. We're now being told that teenagers in particular are not only at real risk of a psychiatric illness, but that cannabis can damage their brain for life. We have two hemispheres of the brain and cannabis has an effect all over the brain because the receptors where cannabis binds to are located throughout here, our cortex, our cerebellum for motor coordination. Professor Yasmin Hurd from Sweden's Karolinska Institute is one of the world's leading brain researchers. She has discovered cannabis can have a profound and lasting impact on the developing teenage brain. Early cannabis exposure changes the chemical makeup of the brain and therefore how it processes information. And those brain regions that it's changed in are very important for emotional processing and for the underlying disorders related to psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, drug addiction. You say the scientific data is there to show that there is a direct link between cannabis and psychosis. Definitely. There are studies now worldwide that have shown this. The earlier you use cannabis, and kids now are using it earlier and earlier, the greater the effect on the brain. So it's cannabis with development. How young are we talking here? You have kids starting at 10, 11 years old. The adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable. As it matures, indicated here in blue, it becomes hardwired. Cannabis can disturb the chemical balance of the brain, causing psychosis. This skunk, which is 30 to 60 times higher in THC content than the ordinary block or the stuff that was around in the 60s, people are really hurting their brains, particularly the young people whose brains aren't properly formed yet. Julie Lynn Evans is a London-based psychotherapist who is at the front line of what she calls a losing battle. More and more young patients are being sent to her with cannabis-related psychosis. And this is what they've been smoking. It's called skunk, the most potent form of cannabis. Loaded with THC, the component of the drug that gets you high, it's regarded by a growing number of experts as the most dangerous drug on the streets today. I would prefer to have an 18-year-old hooked on heroin to treat, or crack cocaine and skunk. That's an extraordinary thing to say. Yes, I know. Very controversial. But you'd prefer a young person to be hooked on heroin? Well, as long as they're smoking it. I think once you go into needles, that's a different ballgame. So you don't recover from skunk? A percentage of children, and we don't know what percentage yet, and it's a small percentage, but because I work on the edge and there's a percentage I see don't recover and there's nothing that you can do about them. Lachlan Preece first tried pot at 15, but only smoked it heavily in his final year of school. Within six months, he was delusional. And I started thinking I could become invisible. And that's when people would look at you and go, man, something's not right. Because you kind of elevate and elevate. So I ended up escaping from hospital invisibly, of course. That's when I started seeing all the auras and I started thinking it was initiation into heaven, I guess. It's party time in Amsterdam, the liberal capital of the Western world. Here, just about anything goes. Cannabis is freely available to be bought and smoked, as long as you're over 18, of course. Oh, that could make me cry. So it's no surprise that it's in this town you'll find the drug's strongest defenders. Without hyperbole, it's the single most important plant in human history. It's the first thing we cultivated as a crop. It was the first thing we wove into a cloth and wore on our back that wasn't an animal skin. It was the only thing strong enough to make paper that would last several generations. It's the only thing strong enough to rig a ship to sail around the world. So it's had these places in these fundamental parts of our development. This is a female flower of the super skunk plant. Ken Johnson runs Amsterdam Seed Bank, a mecca for cannabis connoisseurs. Here, you can buy the high you want. The steady trade, ample evidence that tourists don't come here just for the churls. There's no such thing as a safe drug. Sugar, isn't it? And caffeine aren't safe drugs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're yet to see a sugar user having a psychotic episode as a direct result. Well, we see psychotic episode. The terminology is often very misapplied. A psychotic symptom, a psychotic episode are not the same thing as a psychosis, which is not the same thing as schizophrenia. And as far as science or medicine having decided that cannabis is linked to these things, it's extremely flimsy evidence. This is a prime example of a cannabis indica variety. It's actually a Hindu kush crossed with skunk number one. We call it the pot of gold. Now these originate from colder, more mountainous regions. Other champions of cannabis, like Lorna Clay, who runs an information service about the drug, point to its medicinal properties. It can be used to treat the symptoms of anything from AIDS to arthritis. Medically, this is used to treat people who have glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, even arthritis. But even Lorna expresses concern about the potential effects of cannabis on teenagers. Do you think young people should be smoking marijuana? No, I don't at all. That's also to do with the fact that when you're young, your brain is not fully matured until you're 18 to 21 years old. There is definitely evidence out there in many studies now, worldwide, to show a link between cannabis, and especially I want to emphasise early cannabis exposure and schizophrenia. If you needed further proof illustrating the potentially lethal mix of teenagers and cannabis, it can be found here in Professor Hurd's lab. Young rats exposed to cannabis developed an appetite for other drugs. It's called the gateway theory. We did an animal study where we gave cannabis during the adolescent period and then studied them as adults, and the group of rats that had gotten THC, the active component of cannabis as teenagers, they took more heroin as adults, so clearly there was a gateway effect on the neurobiological level. It had nothing to do with their friends, their parents, their genetics. Of course, humans aren't rats, but we are talking about the vulnerability of our teenagers to an insidious drug. For Lachlan, it took a good 18 months of therapy at Melbourne's Origin Centre for Adolescent Health and the support of family and friends to help him get back his life. Why do you choose to speak out? I choose to speak out because I think there's a real lack of communication about it in terms of marijuana and in terms of the link to mental illness. What impact has this had upon your life? It's had a huge, huge impact. I think if anything, I think it's a huge, huge impact. If anything, it's made me a lot stronger. You survived. Yeah, I did survive. Not everyone does. Yeah, I know, I know. So it's 60 Minutes on 9now.com.au and the 9now app.