In a revelation from her recent memoir published last month, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai shared how cannabis triggered trauma from the 2012 Taliban attack that nearly killed her.

A University Experiment Gone Wrong

Whilst studying at Oxford University, the shooting survivor tried smoking cannabis from a bong with friends in a campus summerhouse. What seemed like a harmless student experience quickly turned into a nightmare.

“I knew this feeling, the terror of being trapped inside my body. This had happened before,” Malala writes in her memoir Finding My Way.

How Cannabis Triggered Trauma She Thought She’d Forgotten

After using the bong, Malala experienced severe physical and psychological reactions. She lost the ability to walk, her muscles locked up, and vivid flashbacks to the shooting began flooding her mind – memories she thought her brain had erased.

The drug use unlocked traumatic memories from her seven-day coma following the Taliban attack. Images replayed relentlessly: her school bus, a man with a gun, blood everywhere, strangers carrying her body through crowded streets.

“There was no escape, no place to hide from my own mind,” she recalled.

The Dangerous Reality of Drug-Induced Trauma

Malala’s friend carried her back to the dormitory, where she spent hours on the bathroom floor, vomiting, screaming, and shaking. She feared closing her eyes, worried the nightmares would trap her in an endless loop of terror.

“If you fall asleep, you will die!” she remembered telling herself, staying awake through the night and into the morning.

The experience revealed a crucial truth: substance use can trigger or worsen serious mental health episodes, particularly in individuals with trauma histories. Cannabis triggered trauma that Malala’s brain had protectively suppressed for years, violently unleashing what she thought she’d forgotten.

A Sobering Warning About Cannabis and Trauma

Malala’s experience demonstrates that cannabis is not the harmless substance many believe it to be. For individuals with underlying trauma, anxiety, or other mental health vulnerabilities, drug use can unleash devastating psychological consequences.

Her friend’s words haunted her afterwards: “It stays in your blood.”

This powerful account serves as a stark reminder that substance use – even experimental or recreational – can trigger unpredictable and severe reactions, particularly in those who have experienced trauma. Cannabis triggered trauma that had lain buried for years, proving that drug use can unlock dangerous psychological responses.

Read the full extract from Malala’s memoir here: WRD NEWS

The New ‘Reefer Madness’?

“Cannabis-induced psychosis is not always ‘denial.’  In many cases, it may well be anosognosia, a brain condition where the person truly cannot recognize that they are ill...To them, the delusions feel real.”  Elle Constantine

To the observer, it may look like denial or defiance. It may not be what can all too often be hedonic recalcitrance perse but actually the manifestation of a condition known as anosognosia. 

Now, let’s be clear from the outset of this read, that this is not just another ‘useful tool’ to avoid accountability for the bio-behavioural disorder commonly referred to as addiction due to the utterly unwise engagement with psychotropic toxins, but it is a ‘flag’ worth having on your diagnostic radar.

I hope I haven’t lost any of you yet – Don’t bail, keep reading!

Walking with a person suffering psychosis or even one of the various forms of dementia, is incredibly difficult and taxing. (This author has very personal experience with this decline) It remains important (and self-care and good personal supports needed for the carer) to maintain a calm demeanour and avoid adversarial, seemingly accusatory or even open ‘corrective’ tones, especially in the dementia dealing context.  Building trust will take time and a consistent affirming of your desire to understand (not agree with the delusions) is part of that. Learning of and working for prevention of a growing dysfunction is also important in assisting you in helping people potentially ‘get’ what they are not currently seeing. 

The following are some of the signs of Anosognosia in Psychosis:

• Insists nothing is wrong even when symptoms are clear to others.
• Rejects treatment or medication because they don’t believe they’re ill.
• Explains away delusions or hallucinations as “real” experiences.
• Gets angry or defensive when told they need help.
• Stops follow-up care after a hospital stay, claiming they’re “fine now.”
• Blames others for problems caused by their illness (e.g., paranoia, loss of work, family conflict).
• Lives with complete conviction inside their false beliefs, unable to recognize them as symptoms.

Anosognosia is a neuropsychiatric condition characterized by a person's lack of awareness or denial of their neurological or psychiatric deficits, often despite clear evidence of impairment. (1)  

Where Did This Come From? Anosognosia means “without knowledge of disease.” The term was introduced in 1914 by the French neurologist Joseph Babinski, who observed that some stroke patients lacked awareness of their paralysis (hemiplegia). (2)

Main Affected Populations: Anosognosia most commonly occurs in individuals with:

• Stroke (especially right hemisphere lesions)
• Traumatic brain injury
• Dementia (notably Alzheimer’s disease)
• Schizophrenia (also drug induced Schizo-affective states)
• Bipolar disorder (3)
• Substance Use Disorders (growing)

Whilst stats on substance users experiencing this are not as readily available, yet it’s important to note that up to 80% of Alzheimer’s patients, around 50–98% of those with schizophrenia, and 40–50% of those with bipolar disorder exhibit anosognosia. One can reasonably speculate that growing numbers of substance users will be experiencing this, as the anecdata below will affirm. (4)  

Symptoms and Presentation: Individuals with anosognosia may:

• Fail to recognize they have a medical or mental health condition
• Not perceive the symptoms they experience
• Be unable to link symptoms to their condition
• Deny the severity or need for treatment (5)

Possible examples of these symptomatic realities are never more clearly manifest than with so called ‘medicinal cannabis’ users who self-medicate with non-pharmaceutical grade offerings.

One such manifestation that goes beyond mere denial or recalcitrant conduct may be found in Cannabis Hyperemesis presentations in areas where cannabis is both legal for ‘recreational’ and ‘medicinal’ use

The following is a synoptic summary of just one Emergency Doctor from Colorado (Ground Zero for cannabis legalisation in the USA). Note how corrupted pro-cannabis bureaucracy and the accompanying of exhaustion of trying to confront the irrationality, not just denial, that led to way UNDER reporting and recording of Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS). 

The following in their own words.

With regards to CHS (Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome), we saw it EVERY SINGLE DAY.  

Only ONCE did I have a patient and his girlfriend recognize and accept that it might be the weed.  I had one guy - who had been to the ER every day for a week with ‘scromiting’ [Screaming and vomiting simultaneously] and his 6 previous work ups (including blood work, CT, ultrasound etc) were all negative except that persistently + urine drug screen for THC [tetrahydrocannabinol].  I suggested it might be CHS and his father (who was probably 60) took a swing at me yelling “it’s not the pot!  I’ve smoked pot all my life and look at me!” (BTW, he was not the picture of health)

We had a girl who started with CHS at 15. She presented so frequently to the ED that her parents stopped going to the ER with her.  Just sent by ambulance, get the vomiting controlled, and send her home by whoever would pick her up.  Sadly, after 2 years of this, I think she graduated to other drugs.  She obviously wasn’t in school.  No education, no skills, just an addiction and vomiting.  For her 17th year, I think she had over 70 visits to the ER.  And no, never acknowledged that it was the pot.

I had another guy 63 - also having CHS.  He also refused to believe it was the pot.  

So, honestly, only one person that I can recall admitted (at least to me while in the ED) that it might actually be the pot.

And we literally had at least one a day. 

(Veteran E. R Medicine Doctor and Cannabis trained medical expert)

The lack of insight may be selective, affecting awareness of some deficits but not others. For example, someone may realize they have language difficulties but not recognize their memory loss. (6)

Causes and Pathophysiology: Anosognosia often results from damage to the brain’s right parietal lobe but can also occur with lesions in the temporoparietal area, thalamus, basal ganglia, or prefrontal cortex. (7) Substance use, and particularly illicit and novel psychoactive substances, will mess with brains and these regions of the brain, potentially adding to the development of this condition beyond mere denial.

Key factors include:

• Disruption of brain regions involved in self-monitoring and error awareness (e.g., prefrontal and insular cortex, default mode network)
• Impaired ability to update self-image or incorporate new information about one’s deficits ²

It can also arise with psychiatric disorders, where functional (rather than structural) brain changes affect insight.(8)

Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis: Diagnosis relies primarily on clinical interviews and observation. Physicians assess whether patients recognize, understand, and respond appropriately to their own deficits. (9)  However, as we have seen with the previously mentioned cannabis hyperemesis issue, it can be a tough ask and that is why gathering data on this is slow, but still vital. 

Impact and Importance: Anosognosia can hinder rehabilitation, treatment adherence, and safety. In conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, it is linked to faster progression, greater caregiver burden, and increased risk of dangerous behaviours. Concerningly, this applies very much to recovery efforts with substance users as well. (10)

Correctly identifying, understanding and properly managing anosognosia, especially in the substance using demographic is vital for effective care planning, patient support and ‘substance use exiting’ recovery.

Shane Varcoe - Executive Director, Dalgarno Institute 

Further Reading:  Educate Before Eight

Classified briefings and explosive Congressional testimony reveal the shocking extent to which Chinese cannabis criminal networks have infiltrated American soil, ultimately transforming what politicians promised would be harmless marijuana legalisation into a sophisticated weapon of mass social destruction.

What Congressional testimony has uncovered will shock even seasoned observers of organised crime: specifically, a meticulously orchestrated invasion that exploits America’s drug liberalisation policies to fund human trafficking, finance deadly fentanyl operations, and potentially compromise national security infrastructure.

THE SMOKING GUN: $153 BILLION IN MISSING CANNABIS

Evidence proves damning and undeniable. Furthermore, internal documents examined show that in Oklahoma alone, a single American state, Chinese cannabis criminal networks have actively created what can only be described as a parallel economy worth ten times the state’s entire government budget.

The numbers stagger beyond comprehension: Between March 2024 and March 2025, licensed grow sites reported 87.2 million cannabis plants. However, dispensaries sold merely 1.6 million pounds of marijuana.

Subsequently, Donnie Anderson, Director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, delivered the devastating calculation to a hushed Congressional hearing room: “Over 85 million plants are unaccounted for, representing an estimated $153 billion in missing product and proceeds.”

To put this criminal enterprise in perspective: Oklahoma’s entire state budget amounts to just $13 billion. Consequently, the illegal cannabis trade controlled by Chinese cannabis criminal networks generates ten times what it costs to run an entire American state.

CALIFORNIA PRECEDENT: THE 100-HOUSE SEIZURE OPERATION

(Complete Article WRD News)

California Cannabis Legalisation Failure: Black Market Volumes Surge Despite Legal Dispensaries: New data reveals California cannabis legalisation failure as black market volumes increase by 20% whilst consumption soars among heavy users - A comprehensive report on California’s cannabis market has delivered a damning verdict on the state’s cannabis legalisation failure, revealing that the promised elimination of criminal drug networks has spectacularly failed to materialise. Instead, the data shows that black market volumes have actually increased whilst overall consumption has rocketed by 90%. 

Consumption Explosion Undermines Public Health Claims

The data reveals another concerning aspect of the California cannabis legalisation failure that undermines public health arguments. The 90% increase in consumption since 2017 has been “primarily driven by an increase in heavy cannabis users,” according to the report’s findings.

This contradicts assurances from legalisation proponents that regulated markets would promote responsible use. Instead, the evidence suggests that legal availability has enabled existing users to dramatically increase their consumption levels, with obvious implications for dependency and associated health harms.

The report notes that California’s per capita consumption remains “still lower than in states that legalised recreational cannabis before California,” suggesting that further increases may be inevitable as this policy continues to unfold.

Economic Incentives Favour Criminal Networks

Whilst criminal organisations face some pricing pressure from legal competition, the California cannabis legalisation failure report suggests they may actually benefit from reduced operational costs. Operating “from within the cover of a wider legal market” appears to have made distribution and production easier for illegal suppliers.

The document notes that wholesale prices have declined substantially, which from a public health perspective represents a particularly troubling development, as “cheaper drug drives up use & harms.”

(And we want to bring this disaster into Australia!) (Source: WRD News)

In the haze of cannabis legalization, the dominant narrative whispers reassurances: “It’s natural,” “It’s safer than alcohol,” “No one dies from marijuana.” Yet, these comforting mantras mask a growing body of evidence that demands a reckoning. Cannabis is not the benign substance its advocates claim. Beneath the green marketing lies a darker reality—one marked by sudden deaths, fatal neonatal outcomes, and an alarming rise in youth mortality. The question is not whether cannabis can harm or kill, but how much damage we are willing to ignore. The phenomenon of “Overdosing’ on Weed” further dismantles the myth of cannabis as a harmless substance, revealing the potential for fatal consequences.

“Death by a Thousand Hits” — Sudden, Unexpected Deaths

Contrary to the widespread belief that cannabis cannot kill, several case studies tell a more troubling story. In Louisiana, Dr. Christy Montegut reported what is considered the first THC overdose, concluding that a 39-year-old woman suffered fatal respiratory failure after vaping high-concentration THC oil. Her autopsy revealed no other contributing substances or conditions [19].

German researchers Hartung et al. documented two cases of young men, ages 23 and 28, who died unexpectedly under the acute influence of cannabis. Full autopsies and toxicological analyses pointed to fatal cardiovascular complications, such as arrhythmias and heart failure, triggered by cannabis use. Neither individual had significant underlying health issues [20][23]. These reports dismantle the “no-fatalities” myth, exposing a direct, albeit rare, link between cannabis and sudden death.

Further complicating the narrative are reports suggesting that cannabis can trigger hypertensive crises and thrombus formations, conditions typically associated with high cardiovascular risk profiles. Marijuana’s effect on increasing heart rate and blood pressure places significant strain on the cardiovascular system, especially when combined with the higher potency THC products now saturating the market.

“Not So Harmless for the Helpless” — Pediatric and Neonatal Risks

The narrative of cannabis safety becomes even more grotesque when it touches the most vulnerable. In 2019, the American Journal of Case Reports detailed the death of an 11-day-old neonate from extensive necrosis and hemorrhage of the liver and adrenals—directly linked to maternal marijuana use during pregnancy. This was not a case of confounding factors; extensive autopsy ruled out other causes [22].

Meanwhile, Arizona’s 2013 child mortality data revealed a harrowing statistic: marijuana was the most prevalent substance linked to the deaths of children under 18—outpacing alcohol and methamphetamine. Sixty-two young lives were snuffed out in one year alone [21], underscoring a grim reality: the normalization of cannabis use comes at a steep, often invisible, cost.

Newer data trends suggest that cannabis exposure during pregnancy can lead to low birth weights, developmental delays, and long-term neurocognitive deficits in surviving infants. These risks remain underreported in mainstream cannabis debates.

“The Green Epidemic” — Rise in Adolescent Harms

With legalization comes accessibility, and with accessibility comes consequence. Colorado’s post-legalization data shows a 22% surge in marijuana use among adolescents aged 12-17—38% higher than the national average [21]. This trend is not benign.

Research indicates that cannabis use during adolescence significantly impairs memory, learning, attention, and reaction time—with cognitive deficits lingering long after intoxication wears off. Longitudinal studies have tied chronic adolescent cannabis use to a permanent loss of up to eight IQ points. More chillingly, marijuana use increases the risk of psychosis and suicidal ideation in youth [21].

Educational performance is equally impacted. Adolescents who regularly use cannabis are significantly less likely to graduate high school or complete a college degree. Increased cannabis availability also correlates with higher rates of academic failure, truancy, and social disengagement—factors that contribute to a broader societal cost.

Mental health repercussions are equally concerning. Heavy teenage cannabis users are more likely to suffer from mood disorders, anxiety, and suicidal behaviour later in life. These mental health burdens place additional strain on already overburdened healthcare systems.

“The Quiet Killer” — Chronic Conditions and Underreported Syndromes

Cannabis’ chronic dangers do not always arrive in dramatic fashion. Sometimes, they erode life silently.

Take Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS), a little-known but increasingly prevalent condition among heavy cannabis users. It causes relentless vomiting, nausea, and abdominal pain. In Indiana, 17-year-old Brian Smith died from dehydration linked to CHS, his kidneys failing under the strain [26]. Emergency departments in states with legal cannabis report increasing numbers of CHS cases, yet awareness remains low among both users and medical professionals.

Beyond CHS, marijuana use has been associated with lung damage comparable to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, increased cancer risks, and up to sixfold higher rates of schizophrenia among users [23]. A systematic review published in the British Medical Journal notes that heavy cannabis users are far more likely to suffer from chronic bronchitis and other respiratory ailments compared to non-users.

Moreover, modern high-potency cannabis concentrates, often exceeding 70% THC, may pose even greater risks to respiratory and mental health than traditional smoked cannabis, magnifying the potential for long-term harm.

“Hidden in Plain Sight” — Hemp, Contaminants, and Unregulated Exposure

Even consumers seeking health-conscious alternatives are not safe. A study on consumer-grade hemp seeds—widely regarded as a “superfood”—revealed THC levels exceeding legal limits by as much as 1250%. A daily recommended serving could deliver up to 3.8 mg of THC—unregulated, unmonitored, and potentially dangerous [24].

This isn’t an isolated issue; it’s a symptom of a marketplace where regulation lags dangerously behind commercialization. Unintended exposures and cumulative low-dose intake add another layer of risk that the public is largely unaware of.

Moreover, contamination issues extend beyond THC. Pesticides, heavy metals, and mould have been detected in numerous cannabis and hemp products, including those marketed as “organic” or “medical grade.” Without stringent oversight and standardized testing protocols, consumers are left vulnerable to these hidden hazards.

Conclusion

The biggest myth surrounding cannabis is the belief that legalizing it would make it safer, healthier, and less harmful. This idea, dressed up in polished legal language, doesn’t hold up under real scrutiny. The truth is clear and alarming—cannabis is not the harmless substance it’s often portrayed to be. From sudden deaths and complications in newborns to cognitive decline, mental health issues, and hidden contaminants, the risks are significant and growing. The reality of overdosing’ on weed further breaks the illusion of safety, showing that cannabis can have serious and even fatal consequences.

Policymakers need to take action. Legalizing cannabis was a mistake—one that may be difficult to undo, but it’s not too late to address. At the very least, legalization must come with strict regulations: public health campaigns, limits on THC potency, standardized testing, clear warning labels, and accountability for the health costs caused by manufacturers and sellers. We’ve already seen the damage caused by the tobacco and alcohol industries when profit is prioritized over safety. We can’t afford to let the same thing happen with cannabis.

It’s time to rethink the narrative. We need to confront the hard truths about cannabis before more lives are affected. Legalization without strong, enforced regulations isn’t progress—it’s negligence disguised as freedom.

The question is no longer whether cannabis can kill. The question is: how much collateral damage are we willing to tolerate in the name of getting high?

Written and compiled by WRD News Team