what a load of nonsense!...hahahahaha...yeah you were off you face on SKUNK!...yeah sure! what on earth are these people about??....skunk has been around for over 10 years!...i have been smokin skunk every night since i was 19...i am 29 now living in lovely north london, with a beautiful 5 year old son, doing very well thank you very much!...

Basically what this person is saying is that it didnt agree with him or his personality...its a self fulfilling prophecy...he clearly thought "oh im smoking skunk, therefore im err going to feel different"...and then it induced his paranoia. If he was that bad there is no way he would have been able to drink alcohol for the rest of the night!...mixing skunk and drink is lethal!...i dont ever do it , cause then you are asking for trouble.

What about our dutch neighbours??...are they a nation of paranoid nutters?,,,no they are calm collected people, with the lowest teenage pregnancy rate..why?..cause it is all open and honest.

lena bond, london,

Exactly, Phil. Despite potency, cannabis is cannabis is cannabis (including Marinol and Sativex). That's why this growing conversation (mostly in the UK, Australia & New Zealand) about "skunk" is so absurd.

So-called "skunk" cannabis contains no chemicals that aren't found in other forms of cannabis including hashish. Sure the former might very well be more potent than the latter, but just as liquor is more potent than beer, the answer is to ingest less of the stronger to achieve the same effects of the weaker.

I don't doubt that "just three drags on a skunk joint will induce paranoia" for you, but again, just as three shots of gin will surely make some fight and some others sleep, it all depends on the individual. Differing metabolisms (especially as one ages) and expectations and environments (aka set and setting) greatly affect the effect of any psychoactive.

Two glasses of wine will induce in me a severe migraine headache, but I would never claim that as a universal effect.

M. Melton, M.Ed., M.A., MLIS, San Francisco, CA, USA

to Mika, Paris

Yes, you can be less high from putting less cannabis in your joint. But there are different kinds of "high" and different strains of weed induces somewhat different effects from lightheadedness and hilarity to a buzzed tiredness and, depending on people, mild paranoia. There isn't that difference in primary effects with alcohol, you're just drunk.

Tom, London,

Everything described happened under prohibition.

Sean, London,

Phil Smith, Huron, SD

It was legal in all the world (as were other drugs) until your country started the "war on drugs" and then petitioned the UN to make it law that all drugs be made illegal. Edinburgh University was happily reaping the benefits of supplying opium to the UK and Western Europe and all was peachy (except for opium addicts sitting in dens). Then you guys come along and after failing with alcohol, you do it with drugs and everyone must play ball... drugs now finance terrorist groups as there is demand but no legal supply, there could have been legal supply as there was before the 60's... but no. The war on drugs has cost thousands of trillions of dollars (that's from just the US) and yet you STILL have drugs on the streets as does the whole world. It didn't work with alcohol (criminal gangs benefited though) it isn't working with drugs (criminals and terrorists are benefiting though) time to wind back the clock and admit a mistake I say. Legalise and tax it.

Graeme, Edinburgh,

Hmmm, mate please don't make sweeping statements about your insecurity manifesting itself and try to pass it off as a unversal effect. The fact that you have had panic attacks is in no way related to the experience other people.

Skunk, and variants are (in general) stronger than others, but the effect is the same. As the previous poster wrote, dont put as much in.

jono, canaries, spain

Is this arcticle a joke? If the weed is stronger, just put less in your joint and everything will be OK. Are you drinking your whiskey in a pint?

mika, Paris,

What is going on over there? Have you people gone completely bonkers? "Skunk" is nothing more than another strain of cannabis, not particularly stronger than many other varieties. This particularly British obsession with skunk and the laughably absurd stories about it are just plain puzzling.

There is a similar hysteria in Australia, only down there, it's not the dreaded skunk but the "hydro" that is supposedly the demon super weed. As if weed grown hydoponically were any different from weed grown in soil.

This Reefer Madness is making us Americans look positively enlightened compared to y'all.

Phil Smith, Huron, SD