DON'T LET TEENAGERS GO TO POT

CANNABIS has always been marketed as a symbol of freedom. It carries
with it connotations of an "alternative" lifestyle, of the atmosphere
of 1960s and 70s, when it was fashionable to drop out of normal
society and simply have a good time, much to the horror of the
establishment.

When I was a university student, it was fashionable to have posters of
aliens smoking cannabis joints on your walls, to show just how unusual
you were (the irony being, of course, that these posters were
mass-produced and mass-bought).

Smoking cannabis, and therefore copping a supposedly
anti-establishment attitude, was seen as a bit naughty but at the end
of the day, just another way to have a fun. It certainly wasn't seen
as something incredibly harmful.

As the saying goes, with great freedom comes great responsibility. In
this country our Government's downgrading of cannabis from a Class B
drug to a Class C one has apparently made cannabis more accessible,
and less demonised.

While many are confused by the technicalities the downgrading, of what
you can or can't do without breaking the law, there is one message
that certainly seems to have been conveyed: it's alright to take
drugs. And it would appear that this dose of freedom is turning around
to bite us on the backside, in the most sinister and tragic way imaginable.

Cannabis is now cheaper and more readily available than ever before,
and the results are beginning to show. At the moment barely a week
seems goes by without a story appearing in the press about a murder or
manslaughter committed by someone suffering psychosis as a result of
excessive cannabis smoking.

Only recently a Welwyn Garden City man was sentenced for stabbing his
father to death after becoming convinced he had been sexually abused
as a child. He had been smoking cannabis since his teens and had
developed paranoid schizophrenia.

Tom Palmer, a 20-year-old from Wokingham, was sentenced last month for
killing two of his friends, aged 16 and 14, with a hunting knife. He
was a daily cannabis smoker. A court heard last week that David
Watson, currently on trial for stabbing a security guard to death in
Norwich, had been smoking cannabis since the age of six.

Okay, so the Daily Mail may use this glut of tragic deaths as a stick
with which to beat the Labour Government, but the evidence is there in
black and white, with studies suggesting that cannabis users are at
least six times more likely than non-users to develop
schizophrenia.

Not all heavy cannabis users will develop mental illness, but medical
experts say that people who are already prone to psychosis are more
likely to go on to develop symptoms, and the charity Rethink says
smoking the drug exacerbates symptoms in people already diagnosed as
schizophrenic.

Cannabis was downgraded from Class B to a Class C in 2004, in order to
give the police greater ability to concentrate on cracking down on
hard drugs.

It is still illegal to possess or deal cannabis, the maximum sentence
for possession being two years and an unlimited fine. Dealing or
supplying carries a jail sentence of up to 14 years, plus an unlimited
fine.

So has this change of tactics worked? Certainly we hear of major drug
rings being smashed, but are we paying a price?

I am sure that Government ministers in charge of the downgrading were
not expecting to see legions of teens turned into lethargic,
de-motivated zombies, with red, puffy eyes and voices that sound like
they've just woken from a two-year sleep. And I'm sure they are aghast
at anyone being murdered by a person rendered violent through
drug-influenced psychosis.

But it is useless to simply sit back and watch as this situation
worsens. We constantly hear from politicians about how society is
falling apart because of the decline of the traditional family unit,
and drug use is inextricably linked to this.

I know plenty of people who enjoy smoking cannabis occasionally, or
even regularly, but I would not classify them as heavy users,
dependant on the drug to get them through the day.

The key is that they have something else in their lives that they
enjoy or look forward to. They have fulfilling jobs, loving
relationships, good prospects. Cannabis, to them, complements their
daily lives; it is not the only bright spot in an otherwise dull and
mundane existence.

In a country that has changed dramatically in the last few decades,
young people have become more disengaged from the rest of society than
ever before, and it can come as no surprise that they seek solace in
something easily available which helps them relax and have a laugh.

But, as we have seen with binge drinking, freedom is something that,
in this country, we have sometimes difficulty handling.

Young people need guidance and protection from those in power, they do
not need to be handed freedom and simply left to get on with it. A
teenager, naturally, will often be convinced that they're invincible.

They might not be wise enough to realise that what they are doing now
could cause them serious problems in the future.

Many people try drugs during their teens and go on to lead perfectly
normal lives. While there is evidence that cannabis makes psychosis
worse, it is not the only factor that comes into play when a tragedy
such as those above takes place.

But surely if our leaders were to take a tougher stance on cannabis,
as a precaution, it would be worth it. Otherwise, instead of just
dabbling in drugs, our young people will end up drowning in them.