Thursday, 8 November 2007

Nine year old drug addicts

Richard Spring MP has posted the most shocking story on his blog on the number of children being treated for cannabis misuse. In response to a parliamentary question he has discovered that 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. My eldest nephew is 9 and loves nothing more than playing with his Transformers, building lego cars, or kicking a football. I simply cannot imagine a nine year old rolling, never mind smoking, a joint. Richard is quite right to say that 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 is time to reverse this stupid policy – and hopefully then we will see a fall in these shocking statistics.

2 comments:

Cllr John Ward said…

Although many of us “out here” have been noting the ongoing decline in our society, aided and accelerated by poor legislative decisions and weak enforcement/punishment, this is still a startling and quite frightening set of statistics.

I too would like to see a drop in these figures in future years — ideally to zero — but doubt that it could ever happen under a Labour government. Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong on that…

Long Island drug rehab said…

I really don't like seeing children use prohibited drugs at their very young age. I think parents should be aware about the sudden changes on their child's behavior.