All going to pot
I recently received an answer to a Parliamentary Question regarding the number of children being treated for cannabis misuse. The statistics are truly horrifying.
9,150 children (up from 7, 571 last year) between the ages of 9 and 15 are being treated for drugs misuse. 56% of these are being treated for specific cannabis problems.
The decision made by the Government to downgrade cannabis to class C was a big mistake. It has given the impression that cannabis is a lot safer than it actually is and sends out a dangerous message to our children.
It was also revealed this week that despite the Government ploughing a massive £130 million extra funding into drug addiction treatment it has only led to 70 more users quitting drugs. Clearly the Government’s current policy of managing addiction by keeping addicts on drugs is failing. It is surely now time to move on to more residential abstinence based rehab programmes.
We have seen a huge Government campaign to stop young people smoking cigarettes. Yet the carcinogenic properties of cannabis are much greater then nicotine. And cannabis is now much stronger then it was a generation ago.
It is truly heart stopping to think that so many very young people are already drug users. There is such a strong link between drug use and youth criminality. It is time cannabis is treated as a major health risk and acted upon accordingly.