'GET TOUGH ON SKUNK OR MORE WILL DIE'

Addicts will kill more people unless the Government takes tougher
action against super-strength cannabis, a mental health charity has warned.

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the charity SANE, said at
least a third of murders committed by addicts of skunk cannabis were
preventable.

She called for an education campaign to teach young people that skunk
was highly dangerous and for special mental health units to treat
users suffering from schizophrenia.

The warning comes after a spate of killings linked to the drug.

Ms Wallace said: "The latest figures show 79 per cent of school
children think cannabis is both harmless and legal, but we clearly
need to have a much stronger message that it can devastate the mind.

"It's like giving school children loaded guns."

Last month an 18-year-old cannabis user was jailed for the frenzied
murder of two school friends and earlier this week a teenager
addicted to skunk admitted to stabbing a grandmother to death.

Ms Wallace said the killings could have been prevented if there was
more rigorous control of the drug.

A Home Office spokesman said the Government had recently launched a
UKP1.8 million anti-drugs campaign and that police had seized 28,000
cannabis plants in raids to shut cannabis factories.

"Our message is clear - cannabis is harmful, is an illegal drug and
should not be taken," she said. "Although skunk is not the dominant
cannabis product on the market, we are concerned that its potency has
increased."

In 2004 cannabis was downgraded from a class B to a class C drug, a
reflection of the softening of political attitudes to "dope".

However, there is growing concern about its side-effects,
particularly the link to psychosis and mental illness.