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My kind uncle was murdered by cannabis-crazed mum… as experts warn Class B drug is fuelling wave of psychotic killers
WHEN pensioner Roger Leadbeater was brutally murdered in cold blood while out walking his dog in a Sheffield park, his distraught family were completely at a loss.
"As a family, we can barely believe such a kind, gentle soul could be taken in such a way,' they said in a statement, highlighting how the 74-year-old's faithful springer spaniel refused to leave his side while he lay dying that fateful evening in August 2023.
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It later emerged the woman charged with killing him, then 32-year-old schizophrenic Emma Borowy, was a habitual cannabis user who, when not being treated in a mental health hospital, would sacrifice feeding herself to pay for the drug.
Mother-of-one Borowy, who died in a suspected suicide in prison in December 2023, had absconded from Royal Bolton Hospital eight times since she was sectioned in October 2022, and each time she escaped she would buy weed and display increasingly concerning psychotic behaviour.
'As far as I could see she was never reprimanded at all for having cannabis despite having it every time she left and even having it on hospital grounds,' Roger's grieving niece, Angela Hector, 56, told The Sun.
'I am now so scared of what cannabis can do. This has had a massive impact on us as a family. We have lost somebody really important to us.'
In May this year, London Mayor Sadiq Khan backed a call for the partial decriminalisation of possession of the Class B drug in a recent report by the London Drugs Commission.
It suggested doing so could free up law enforcement and court resources, as individuals caught with small amounts might face warnings, fines or community service, and eventually pave the way towards a regulated cannabis market.
But the suggestion set alarm bells ringing for Roger's family - and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset, David Sidwick.
He wrote a letter to police minister Dame Diana Johnson which was signed by 13 other PCCs, claiming the effect of the drug in society may, in actual fact, be 'far worse' than heroin, and it should be upgraded to Class A - a belief shared by the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Mr Sidwick said: 'It is a chronically dangerous drug that we haven't gripped. The whole world has been subjected to a PR campaign in the other direction.
'I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 30 years and this drug has long-term chronic side effects.
'It is associated with more birth defects than thalidomide and is linked to more than 20 cancers. Not to mention the issues with psychosis and drug driving.'
Mr Sidwick's concerns are echoed by the findings of a Sun probe which reveals cannabis is behind a mental health epidemic that has seen a third of people presenting with psychosis in London developing it from heavy use of high strength weed.
The THC levels - the mind-altering element in weed - nowadays is almost seven times stronger than it was 35 years ago, shooting up from three per cent to 15-20 per cent in potent modern-day cultivated cannabis.
The increase has a frightening effect on the addictiveness of the substance, making users, particularly teenagers with developing brains, vulnerable to mental health issues with prolonged heavy use, which can progress to violent disorders - sometimes with deadly consequences.
'Epidemic'
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Psychiatrist professor Sir Robin Murray, who specialises in psychosis at King's College, London, told The Sun: 'To the parents in their 40s and 50s who see their children smoking cannabis, they need to be aware that it is a very different substance to what it was years ago.
'The result is that it's far more addictive. We're seeing smokers having up to 20 joints a day.
'We are at the beginnings of an epidemic of cannabis-induced psychosis.
'About a third of the people in London who present with psychosis have developed it from heavy use of high potency cannabis.
'The mental health service is a right mess. One of the reasons for that is that we've got more people who are psychotic than we're expected to have.
'Half of those people with cannabis induced psychosis will develop schizophrenia in five years.
'But it is not schizophrenia that makes you violent, it's cannabis that makes you violent.
'Cannabis makes you paranoid, so if you're hearing voices from God commanding you to do something, then you're seeing violence in a bizarre and horrifying murder that is not like plotting to kill your wife in six weeks time, but a sudden psychotic episode where you kill whoever you come across.'
The effects of this were seen on June 27, when Marcus Arduini-Monzo, 37, was jailed for life after he murdered 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin with a samurai sword as he walked to school in a 20-minute rampage in East London.
The appalling attack was blamed on Arduini-Monzo's cannabis misuse.
Links to violence
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Cannabis is currently a Class B drug, along with ketamine and amphetamines. It was returned to Class B after being downgraded to Class C by Labour between 2004 and 2009.
English teacher Ross Grainger runs a blog cataloguing cannabis-related violent crimes called Attacker Smoked Cannabis, and has written a book of the same name - inspired by the phrase he uses when searching for incidents.
He told The Sun: 'I started this in 2017 when I was worried we could be going in the direction of decriminalisation and I realised there was a problem.
'I'd say there has been a steady violent episode every two weeks for the past 30 years - and what I log is the tip of the iceberg.
'I log murders, suicides, rapes, drug driving and terrorism.
'I was struck by how it is considered a peaceful drug that couldn't in any way lead to violence, yet the evidence I read as I began researching showed how strongly that is not the case, and how strongly it is linked to terrible violence.
I'd say there has been a steady violent episode every two weeks for the past 30 years - and what I log is the tip of the iceberg... For me, there is no drug worse than cannabis
Ross Grainger
'I see the same pattern emerging where a young person has cannabis from a young age, loses their mind and commits a terrible act of ultraviolence.
'You'd be forgiven for thinking it is legal in this country. Really it is decriminalised in all but name.
'For me, there is no drug worse than cannabis. Other drugs have horrendous side-effects, but what can be worse than actually losing your mind?
'It seems crazy to me that a Government can be so anti-smoking, and do so well in enforcing a ban, but then be so lax at enforcing cannabis legislation.'
'Cannabis took my son'
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Heartbroken mum, Julie Romani, 60, from Bradford, West Yorks., knows only too well the harmful effects cannabis addiction can have after her son Jordan took his own life in September 2017, aged 27.
He'd started smoking cannabis as a young teenager and couldn't function without it.
The widowed property developer and mum-of-two, whose husband died aged 61 in 2011, when Jordan was 21, said: 'My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer when Jordan was 14, so I think that's when he started to develop a habit.
'We didn't know what was going on. We put mood swings down to him being a teenager, but the emotional instability, nastiness and anger continued and got worse over the years.
'He was depressed and ended up where he couldn't get a grip on reality. He used to say the only thing that made him happy was his 'Happy Baccy'.
'He tried so hard to quit and had even stopped smoking it for three months before he died, but he couldn't cope with it and couldn't cope without it.
'Jordan had everything to live for but the cannabis took him.'
After Jordan's death Julie set up a charity, Help For Dependency, and now raises awareness of the dangers of cannabis to mental health.
'Chicken and egg' situation
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Investigative journalist Julian Hendy founded the charity Hundred Families after his father Philip, 75, was killed by mentally ill Stephen Newton in a drug-induced psychosis in 2007.
Newton lay in wait for Philip to emerge from buying a newspaper before fatally stabbing him in the street in Bristol.
Julian's charity has now backed over 300 families who have lost loved ones at the hands of mentally ill patients, many of whom were under the influence of cannabis.
He said: 'Cannabis and serious mental health problems are very common to go together. Around 70 per cent of those with serious mental illness also abuse drugs.
'It is sometimes difficult to know which caused the other in a chicken and egg situation.
'There's a lot that needs to be done in treating mental illness and stopping patients from being involved in drugs that can cause schizophrenia and make mental illness worse.
'In the case of my dad, the services knew this chap took drugs and they didn't do anything to stop him taking these drugs.
Jordan tried so hard to quit and had even stopped smoking it for three months before he died, but he couldn't cope with it and couldn't cope without it. Jordan had everything to live for but the cannabis took him
Julie Romani
'The death of my dad was very preventable. They should have done better to save my dad, they didn't do so, and I see that in lots of cases.
'My father's killer got a murder conviction, which you don't always get. It was found that he had made the dangerous choice of taking drugs that caused him to become psychotic and murder and therefore he was held responsible and jailed for 16 years in October 2008.
'Yet in the case of Valdo Calocane, who committed the Nottingham murders of 19-year-old university students Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, he was not tested for drugs, and was convicted on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
'Then you get shorter sentences in hospital which doesn't feel like justice for the families.
'He should have been tested for drugs at the time of his arrest and he wasn't.
'Right now people who present with problems due to cannabis will not be helped because cannabis is the cause, unless they have psychosis, and only then they sometimes get the help.
'Mental health services seem to be aware this is a common problem but they don't actually take enough effective steps to try to stop people becoming psychotic.'
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Crazed cannabis killers
JAKE NOTMAN
Jake Notman, 28, was jailed for eight years and eight months after admitting to killing his girlfriend, Lauren Bloomer, during a psychotic episode triggered by a cannabis brownie.
In November 2020, Notman stabbed Bloomer more than 30 times and ran her over outside their Tamworth home.
Bloomer, 25, had begun recording on her phone after seeking help online for Notman's bad reaction to the drug.
The audio recorded her screams and Notman's chilling words before the sound of a revving engine and a thud.
Neighbours saw him run over her and return indoors without offering help.
Notman later called 999, saying he'd been told he killed his girlfriend.
Prosecutors initially charged him with murder, but psychiatric experts concluded he couldn't distinguish reality at the time.
The court accepted his manslaughter plea.
The judge said the killing was 'unexpected and frightful,' partly caused by the drug.
PIETRO ADDIS
Pietro Addis, 19, was jailed for 15 years in May 2023 after fatally stabbing his grandmother, Sue Addis, at her home in Withdean, East Sussex, in January 2021.
Though he admitted the killing, a jury accepted his plea of diminished responsibility due to a psychotic episode, finding him guilty of manslaughter.
Addis, diagnosed with ADHD in 2018, had been living with his grandmother but tensions rose over his cannabis use.
At the time of the attack, Brighton restaurateur Sue was seeking professional help for him.
On the day of the incident, Addis called 999, and police discovered Sue in the bath with 17 stab wounds.
Judge Christine Laing KC stated that despite his mental condition, Addis bore significant responsibility.
He must serve at least 10 years in custody and five on licence.
DANIEL O'HARA WRIGHT
Daniel O'Hara Wright, 24, was found not guilty of murdering his mum, Carole Wright, by reason of insanity after a harrowing trial at Oxford Crown Court.
Suffering a severe psychotic episode, he believed his mother had become a demon and killed her and gouged out her eyes during a walk at Watlington Hill on October 23, 2020.
The day of the killing, he woke up between 10am and 11am and smoked a small amount of cannabis 'through a hollowed out potato'.
Witnesses saw him behaving erratically afterward, including biting off a chicken's head, climbing a pylon, and telling strangers he'd "fallen from the sky".
Experts agreed he was deeply psychotic, with delusions of being a god or shaman. Psychiatric evidence confirmed he did not understand his actions were wrong.
The jury, after over two hours of deliberation, accepted the insanity defence.
Wright's deteriorating mental health had been evident for years prior to the killing.
Angela, a community service officer and mum-of-five, is still fighting for answers, furious that her uncle's killer was reportedly never reprimanded for her cannabis use, despite allegedly having it on hospital grounds.
'Despite evidence showing the detrimental impact it has on mental health, I cannot see any evidence that anything is done to help mental health patients stop taking it,' she said.
'Borowy was refusing to take her own anti-psychotic medication and self-medicating instead, with disastrous consequences.'
Borowy was sectioned in October 2022 for sacrificing two goats she stole from a farm in a witchcraft ceremony.
One time she escaped she told police she would murder hundreds of people and had threatened a 'bloodbath'. She was also often found with knives.
Tragically, after being granted supervised leave on August 7, Borowy ran off from the healthcare worker accompanying her and travelled to Sheffield where she killed Roger Leadbeater two days later.
Angela is now incredibly wary of being around anyone she suspects is using cannabis.
'I went to a 90s festival just last month and I had to leave because the smell of cannabis in the air was too much for me,' she said.
'I didn't feel safe and I was scared of what it could do to the people smoking it. They could be a walking timebomb.
'I know what happened to Roger is rare, but he is proof that it can happen - and the reality is that cannabis is not rare.
'The problem with a murder caused by cannabis is that they are so tied up with mental health that the cannabis side of it gets forgotten. More needs to be done about prevention.
'Sadiq Khan needs to take a walk in our shoes for a week to see what he thinks of cannabis use then.'
A spokesperson from the Home Office said: "We are continuing to work with partners across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use, ensure more people receive timely treatment and support, and make our streets and communities safer."
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