Cannabis Messes With Your Mind
The campaign focused on the harms associated with cannabis use, including issues relating to physical health, and mental health and wellbeing and was part of a five year election commitment.
The Drug Aware “Cannabis Messes with your Mind” prevention campaign launched in August 2011 and continued to November 2014.
Cannabis use can increase the risk of mental health problems, especially in young people. This risk increases with frequency and amount of cannabis use. The frequent or even occasional use of cannabis can cause anxiety, depression, paranoia and psychosis in those people who have a vulnerability to mental health problems. People who use cannabis in their teens may also have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia. This risk also increases with frequency and amount of cannabis use.
The “Cannabis Messes with your Mind” campaign was developed to highlight the health harms of cannabis use, particularly mental health and wellbeing.
The overall aim was to prevent cannabis use amongst young Western Australians, intervene early with those who use cannabis and encourage and support cannabis users to quit or cut down.
Key message
- Using cannabis can cause you problems relating to your physical and mental health and wellbeing.
- Using cannabis can cause mental health problems like psychosis, anxiety and mood swings.
- People can become dependent on cannabis, making it difficult to stop using them.
- The risk of mental health problems increase the earlier a person starts and the more they use cannabis.
Target group
Primary: 15 to 19-year-old people who are at risk of cannabis use, as well as occasional users.
Secondary: 12 to 29-year-old people who are at risk of cannabis use, as well as occasional and regular users.
Campaign objectives
- Prevent and delay the onset of cannabis use.
- Reduce the amount and frequency of cannabis use by occasional and regular cannabis users.
- Increase the number of people attempting to quit cannabis use.
- Increase awareness about the risks associated with cannabis use amongst parents, the general community and people who use cannabis.
- Increase the awareness about the laws surrounding cannabis possession and use.
