Clara Iza and Layla Alemán, 24 and 28 years old, respectively, are the researchers who lead the presentation of this app. Like the rest of the Group, which has worked in collaboration with researchers from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, they are psychologists, and they made the decision to begin this research within their doctorate, alerted by the situation of “normalization” achieved by the cannabis and the low perception of risk that people who consume it have, who increasingly start at younger ages.
Cannabis – hashish or marijuana – is the most consumed drug in the world, says Alemán, and almost 22 percent of those who regularly consume it are between 15 and 24 years old, having started using it even before they were 15.
The legislative changes that are taking place and facilitate consumption, the large number of existing myths about its therapeutic benefits and the fact that cannabis is perceived as a harmless substance for our health, without physical or mental consequences, is generating, according to these Asturian researchers, that consumption and dependency are increasingly greater and, therefore, more worrying. In fact, in recent years, as the research group has seen, consumption has increased, especially between 15 and 34 years of age.
This is how CanQuit was born, a free application that for four weeks offers guidelines and activities aimed at helping people with cannabis addiction reduce their consumption or even abandon it. It is now available for download in the Play Store (Android) and in a few months it will also be available in the Apple Store (IOS).
The idea of making a health application for mobile phones arose when young researchers from the group at the University of Oviedo arose when they realized that young cannabis users shied away from “face-to-face” treatments. As Clara Iza explains, there are several reasons that explain this reaction, including not perceiving the risk, the stigma that comes with recognizing addiction, and even economic issues. Barriers that prevent, in many cases, those who decide to do so from starting treatments.
As determined by the studies developed by these researchers to develop this application, in Spain 41 percent of the population acknowledges having tried cannabis, while up to 21 percent of young people between 15 and 24 years old are regular consumers.
One year of research
The CanQuit app, which can be used by anyone over 18 years of age, is the result of a research process that has lasted a year and includes the psychological treatment procedures typical of face-to-face therapies with proven effectiveness.
Through the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy, the app progressively eliminates myths about consumption, exploits the motivations of consumers to try to direct them to their goal and helps manage withdrawal syndrome, if it exists, thanks to techniques similar to mindfulness.
To put all this into practice, users must keep a daily record of their tobacco and cannabis consumption and, through a series of guidelines and strategies, reduce consumption progressively each week.
At CanQuit they also work on the prevention of relapses thanks to the development of a Prevention Plan, with which the person can identify those risk situations in which the need or desire to consume appears, to avoid it.
Other peculiarities of the app, which the research group considers as an additional feature, is the existence of a group chat for users, completely anonymous, of course, through which they can be in contact with the staff. of the research group, all of them psychology professionals, and it also has personalized consumption graphs, both for cannabis and tobacco, for those cases in which consumption occurs of both substances.
Both Clara and her colleague Layla, and the rest of the predoctoral research group, trust that CanQuit is a useful tool to, at the very least, take the first step towards identifying the problem, that is, facing consumption and seeing it as a problem. , rather than as absolutely normalized behavior.
They are fully aware that a technological tool like this, in no case can replace face-to-face therapy, but what it can do is help eliminate the barrier that exists between the person who consumes, the recognition of the problem and the request for help. aid. Likewise, it can also be a push for consumers to understand their consumption, to know how much they consume per day or week, when they consume or what precedes and precedes this consumption.
“Hitting the button is the complicated part”
Psychiatrist Eduardo Carreño has been dedicating himself to the study and treatment of addictions for 38 years. It identifies the normalization of cannabis consumption as one of the reasons, if not the main one, that explains the increase in consumption and the decrease in the age of initiation.
Get to know this application and consider that it is a very good tool to help you become aware of how much you smoke or the work it can cost the user to stop smoking. However, the treatment is in the therapies.
“For those who are considering leaving it, it is useful, for those who want to leave it, even more useful,” he says about the application, but the really difficult thing is “hitting the button and registering,” because that is the moment in which you are recognizing yourself. that there is a problem.
Cannabis consumption has stabilized upwards because prevention campaigns have decreased. Everyone smokes pots
The studies that are carried out annually at the national level, one with people of general age and another with people of school age, show that consumption has stabilized upwards in recent years, or in other words, according to this no-nonsense psychiatrist. in the language “everyone smokes pots”. And why, because Eduardo Carreño is clear that, after controlling the passage of heroin through our society, prevention programs were significantly reduced and when prevention goes down, consumption goes up, he says.
Carreño explains that the most consumed legal drugs are alcohol and tranquilizers, in this order, and the illegal drugs are cannabis and cocaine. And yet, he cannot understand the reason why its consumption has been trivialized to the point that it is presented as a harmless substance by countless campaigns.
Many people pass by his office. “The majority arrive with mental health problems and in 70 percent of these cases, when you scratch, you end up realizing that they smoke like crazy,” he says, which is why we talk about dual pathology, that is, treating mental health problems. and at the same time those of hashish and/or marijuana consumption.
Far from what many people think, cannabis is a psychodysleptic drug, it produces mental changes that distort normal perception or induce hallucinations. Therefore, for those who consume it, it can cause alterations in character, panic attacks, anxiety attacks or nighttime nightmares. It is the third substance capable of producing schizophrenia, after synthetic drugs, and psychotic attacks.
With all this, Eduardo Carreño is committed to taking it seriously and recovering prevention campaigns. The message for citizens is clear, that they ask, that they seek advice and that they do so in specialized centers.
#weeks #quit #joints #Spanish #app #addiction
