SCIENCE JOURNAL 2018

Crude Odds Ratios for Suicide and Schizophrenia in Relation to Frequency of Cannabis use Graph 2

Graph 1

Impact on Australian Society According to (Black Dog Institute. 2017), everyday at least six Australians die from suicide. Suicide is an act caused by mental health one of the most common being depression. As discussed, adolescents who used cannabis daily are five times more likely to develop depression than someone who does not. Referring to Graph 2 which showing suicides in relation to cannabis use, it can be seen that the suicide rate is significantly larger in people that have used the drug more than 50 times then never used before. This determining there is a greater risk of suicide for people who do the drug rather than those who do not. In the graph it can be seen that as weed use increases, suicide rates also increase therefore farthing showing the effect on the drug on mental health as mental health can lead to suicide. Mental illnesses and suicides cause great grief in a social outlook it is hard for families to comprehend the possibility that it could happen to them from their child or friend making a life changing decision to smoke cannabis. Furthermore, the possibility of mental health to be caused from the loss of a relative is extremely high and could further result in the suicide rate to rise in the future (The facts about depression and anxiety. 2018.)

In Australia, all members of the community are obligated to pay a certain amount of tax each year that the governments then uses to improve our nation. However, a big portion of the economic profit is provided by the government to support the unemployed (The Guardian. 2018.) Centrelink is a company that distributes a certain wage to people in many different circumstances, one being the circumstance that the individual is unemployed. In many of these circumstances the individual can work but chooses due to addiction. As stated previously, up to 50% of frequent marijuana users become addictedat some point and according to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016, unemployed people are up to three times more likely to use drugs. This suggesting that our economy is encouraging peoples addiction as the weekly payments are allowing them to fuel their addiction and not have to work. (Kenneth W Clements. 2013.) This creates a real economic controversy as in many cases, this isn’t the case. However, seen very commonly, addicts are taking advantage of the opportunity and our working citizens are being forced to pay taxes to those whom don’t deserve it instead of putting it towards areas that really need it such as curing mental health (AJP. 2018.).

SC J SI

30

Somerset College Journal of Scientific Issues

Year 10