SKUNK STRENGTH HAS DOUBLED, STUDIES SUGGEST

. Claims That Super-Strength Variety Dominant Rejected

. Cannabis Researchers Analysed Seized Samples

The unpublished results of authoritative research into cannabis
confirm the "skunk" now on sale in England is stronger than it was a
decade ago, but demolish claims that a new "super-strength skunk" -
which is 20 times more powerful - is dominating the market.

Two studies due to be published later this year, which together
analysed nearly 550 samples of skunk seized by the police, both
conclude that the average content of the main psychoactive agent in
skunk strains of cannabis, THC, has doubled from 7% in 1995 to 14% in
2005.

But the findings of the two studies to be reported in Druglink, the
drugs charity magazine, contradict recent claims that most of the
skunk on sale in Britain now routinely has a THC-content of more than
30%. One of the studies showed that only 4% of the skunk that had been
seized by the police had a strength level higher than 20%.

The claims earlier this year that a new strain of "super-strength
skunk" cannabis that was up to 20 times more potent was dominating the
British drug market and triggering mental health fears led Gordon
Brown to order a new review of the legal status of the drug in July.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, asked the government's advisory
council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) to look at the current evidence
on the use of stronger forms of the drug in the light of concerns
about the potential mental health effects.

The ACMD last looked at whether to regrade cannabis as a class B
rather than a class C illegal drug 18 months ago. It concluded that
the strength of cannabis resin and "traditional" imported herbal
cannabis had remained unchanged over the past 10 years but that the
average potency of skunk or sinsemilla seizures had increased more
than twofold.

However, the ACMD chairman, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, came down
against tightening up the penalties for using cannabis, saying there
was too little information about the pattern of use of different
strength cannabis products by consumers to change the law.

Recent evidence has shown that although there has been an explosion in
cannabis farms and "home-grown" plants in Britain, little of what is
produced is "super-strength skunk".

The majority is less potent but has higher yielding
varieties.

The ACMD is due to give its new verdict in April next
year.

The first of the two unpublished studies which appear to confirm those
findings was by Leslie King, the former head of the Forensic Science
Service's drugs intelligence unit. He tested 299 samples collected by
forensic scientists and his findings are to be published later this
year by the EU's drug agency, the European Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction.

The parallel study by researchers at Kings College, London, analysed
skunk samples seized by police in Derbyshire, Kent, London, Sussex and
Merseyside. This study found that far from a new strain of 30% plus
"superskunk" dominating the market only 4% of the cannabis seized had
a higher potency level than 20%, with the strongest sample containing
24% THC.

The Kings College researchers found that the more traditional
non-skunk strains of herbal cannabis on sale in England seized by the
police contained only 3% to 4% THC - unchanged from a decade ago.

A move to have higher separate penalties for possession of the
stronger "skunk" strains of cannabis was ruled out two years ago in
the face of the problem posed for the police of identifying different
types of cannabis during street searches.

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IN NUMBERS

20 Claims that a new 'super' skunk is 20 times stronger are
demolished

30% Most skunk on sale had been said to contain more than 30%
THC

550 The number of seized samples of skunk analysed in the two
studies

14% Average THC content in samples

4% Only 4% of skunk seized had THC of over 20%, one study showed