Such obvious politics

Pfft. Alarming rise in number of child cannabis victims!!! Oh no!

In 2002, David Blunkett, the then home secretary, announced that cannabis would be reclassified from a Class B to a Class C drug.

That year, 198 under-16s were admitted to Scottish treatment programmes in connection with cannabis use.

The latest figures have revealed that by 2004, the year in which the law downgrading the drug was passed, the number of children treated for cannabis use almost doubled to 382.

The following year 376 child cannabis users entered rehab schemes.

Experts said children entering treatment would have been taking cannabis for years, as such help was generally sought only after the habit had become “problematic”. They warned the true number of Scots under 16 using the drug would be far higher.

So, naturally:

She said: “This horrifying rise in the number of children being treated for cannabis addiction coincides with the downgrading of cannabis.

“Surely this is evidence, if it were needed, that the Labour government’s decision to reduce cannabis from a Class B to Class C drug was a massive mistake.”

At the time of the controversial decision, Mr Blunkett told the Commons that cannabis would be downgraded to distinguish between “drugs which kill and drugs that cause harm”.

But the United Nations’ drugs watchdog this week attacked the government’s policy change.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN office on drugs and crime, claimed it sent a confusing message to young people.

UN experts also warned that a major increase in the potency of cannabis meant that it now posed health risks similar to those of heroin.

Gaille McCann, a founder of the Mothers Against Drugs campaign group and a Glasgow councillor, said downgrading the drug had increased its “social acceptability” and the situation appeared to be getting worse.

Now. The reason why most kids experiment with drugs, pot or otherwise, is because they’re not supposed to. If pot was socially and legally acceptable, you may get a short-term spike from people going, “Wahey!!”, but that would fall away because the illicit nature, the naughtiness, of the activity is gone.

You will never be able to rid the society of addictive drugs. There will always be drug users and drug addicts. It is ridiculous to expect any government to wipe out drugs, and then blame them when it doesn’t work. High Society is right; we have lost whatever war there was (is) on drugs. What we need to do is to educate people openly about the effects of drug use, without using overly dramatic and scary pictures. Regulate the supply of drugs so that what addicts get is clean and not cut with detergent or whatever it is they get cut with. Improve on treatment programmes for people who want to get off drugs — if they’re forced into it, they’ll never quit.

I don’t see the same vehemence over alcohol, which can cause a deadly addiction too. Did the complete and utter failure of Prohibition in the United States not give anyone a clue? Or is alcohol different, because governments tax it and it’s a major social lubricant?

(Disclaimer: I don’t do drugs. I do not mix in circles where there is much drug use — that I know of, anyway.)

• 28 Jun 2006

• Thinking