Ganja and cannabis de-addiction treatment

The honest position

Cannabis withdrawal is not dangerous in the way alcohol withdrawal is. Nobody has fits from stopping ganja. We are not going to pretend otherwise in order to frighten a family into an admission.

What we do see, and see often, is something different and more serious. In young people using heavily, cannabis can bring on or worsen psychiatric illness. Suspicion that will not go away, hearing things, withdrawal from everybody, sometimes a full psychotic episode. This is well documented in the medical literature and it is not rare.

When a family should act

Losing a year of study or dropping out of college.

Personality change. A confident boy becoming suspicious, hostile or frightened.

Talking to himself, or believing things that are clearly not happening.

Using through the day rather than occasionally with friends.

Panic attacks or sleeplessness that started after the use began.

How it is treated here

The physical part is mild and usually settles in a week or two. Irritability, poor sleep, low appetite and vivid dreams are the common pattern.

The important part is the psychiatric assessment. If there is psychosis, anxiety or depression, that is treated properly by our consultant, not simply waited out. This is where most kendras have nothing to offer, because they have no doctor.

The rehabilitation part matters because ganja use in young men is usually tied to the group he sits with every evening. Counselling works on that, and the structured routine gives him something else to do with the day.

Before you call

It helps if you know roughly how long it has been going on, how much he is taking, whether he has been admitted anywhere before, and whether there have been fits or blackouts. Bring any medicines and reports with you. None of it is essential. Ring us either way.

Nothing you tell us goes anywhere else. No name and no photograph leaves this centre without written permission from the family.

Where this information comes from

This page is written at the centre and checked by our consultant psychiatrist before it goes up. Where we describe how a drug behaves or how withdrawal works, we follow published guidance from bodies such as the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre at AIIMS, and the World Health Organization. You can read our editorial policy.