The Cannabis Diaries — a mother’s struggle to save her family
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Due 2nd March 2010
By Debra Bell
With a practical appendix by Dr Atakan Zerrin, Consultant/Hon Senior Lecturer, The Maudsley, London, UK
Buy now...
160pp £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-905140-30-5
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Debra Bell and her son William will feature in Sky TV’s ‘personal lives’ documentary ‘My Son, Drugs and Me’ on 10 March 2010
Order your copy now for free postage until 31 March 2010
'Reading your Diaries was like reading my own story. My mother read them too,and for the first time ever she said she
hadn’t realised what it must have been like for me...'
When Debra Bell’s oldest son, William, started smoking cannabis at school aged 14,the family were only moderately concerned. This was a harmless, non-addictive recreational drug, they believed – nothing like as problematic as alcohol. But then
William’s personality began to change. From being a bright, ambitious sport-loving boy he gradually transformed into a liar
and a thief who truanted from school and could see no further ahead than the next fix.
Health professionals assured Debra that these changes could not be caused by cannabis – there must be something else
going on. Thus began the lonely struggle to understand what was happening to William and to share that understanding with
other families – both those who were suffering without support in the same way, and those who wanted to avoid the
descent into addiction and possible psychosis.
The Cannabis Diaries, based on the online diary that Debra kept from December 2006, record a seminal year in her family’s battle to hold together and help William without damaging their younger sons. Anybody going through a similar experience
will empathise and find comfort in the shared experience and the knowledge that cannabis really can have these effects –
it is not just bad parenting.
About the author
Debra Bell is a freelance journalist. She lives in London with her husband, who is a criminal barrister, and their three sons.
She set up the website, Talking About Cannabis, in December 2006, where she published the online diary on which this book is
based. She began her career as a presenter and journalist on BBC Radio, moving later into print journalism as a feature writer, but
now devotes herself full time to raising awareness about the potentially damaging effects of cannabis on the young.
Summary of media coverage
‘Talking About Cannabis’ has received favourable media coverage. Debra has become a spokesperson for families suffering with the ‘hidden’ issue of cannabis use among the young. Over the past 2 years she has given interviews on most tv and radio channels: Newsnight, GMTV, LK Today, BBC News, BBC Breakfast, Sky News, ITN, Channel 4, BBC World Service’s ‘World Today’, BBC 5 Live, Radio 1xtra, BBC Wales, LBC, Radio London, Radio City, and many other local radio stations.
With her son William, she has also been interviewed on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, ITV’s This Morning (with Eammon Holmes), ITV’s Tonight nd BBC News. She has spoken at drugs conferences in the UK and abroad. She and William are currently taking part in a documentary on cannabis abuse among the young for the Sky tv series ‘Real Lives’, to be screened in February 2010 (being produced by MAP tv). They have also been interviewed for a BBC 3 documentary on skunk and the young, and interviews with them both form part of a Radio 4 Christmas Special about the international drugs problem to be aired on 24 December 2009. Debra has also given interviews for many newspapers and magazines: Daily Mail, Observer, ‘You’ magazine (Mail on Sunday), Good Housekeeping, Evening Standard, Sunday Times. Will has also spoken on radio and tv (BBC News) about his experiences and is a spokesperson for the Government drugs support agency ‘FRANK’.
