CHILDREN DUPED BY CANNABIS

Primary School Children Believe Cannabis Is A Safe, Legal Medicine, A
Survey Of Teachers Has Shown.

Teachers say children are increasingly confused about drugs. Seventy-nine
per cent said children believed cannabis was safe.

The charity Life Education Centres surveyed 56 of its specialist teachers
who promote drugs awareness through group discussions and role play, in
2,000 schools across the UK.

Two-thirds of those surveyed said the proposed reclassification of cannabis
from a Class B to a Class C drug could lead young children to experiment
with the drug and make drug prevention work more difficult.

Almost three quarters of teachers said children thought it was less harmful
to smoke cannabis than to smoke a cigarette, and 79% said they thought
cannabis was safe to use.

The majority - 86% - said children thought cannabis was legal and 79% said
children believed it was a type of medicine.

Confusion

Stephen Burgess, national director of Life Education Centres, said the
survey's findings showed people working with children must "redouble" their
efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs amongst children.

He said: "The very public debate about cannabis, much of it downplaying the
potential harm, coupled with proposals to reclassify the drug, appear to
have confused many children about the real dangers."

Dr Simon Fradd, chairman of health charity the Doctor Patient Partnership,
said: "The findings are obviously worrying. Children are exposed to all
kinds of messages about health and drugs through the media, films and the
Internet as well as the playground.

"It is important they have the skills, confidence and knowledge to filter
this information correctly."