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Question and Answer Session All Party Parliamentary Group Meeting (Children and Cannabis)

by CanSS, posted 15 05 2012

Robert Buckland – With reference to drug prevention, when and how do you intervene?

Kah Mirza - We try to catch them before they reach the “at risk” stage.  We talk to young people and question their use of drugs and alcohol.  Teachers, parents, police and youth workers all need to engage the young people in conversation and try to keep up with what they are doing.  We need to train people within a framework to ask the young people the right questions and how to open conversation.

Barry Twigg -   What do you do if there is no youth service and the local schools won’t do it?

Kah Mirza - In our area we have brought in youth workers and voluntary groups etc.  There is a huge funding issue for services for young people.  It is vital to get in early.  The later there is intervention, the more costs are involved, both in human and monetary costs.

Janice Elliot – What specific intervention do you put in at the “at risk” stage?

Kah Mirza – The key issues are to support them and their families.  We need to provide a different way of life, things to do etc.  We need to provide positive family life and role models.

Mike Petch – You are assuming that they are all from bad backgrounds.  How do you reach a group of young people from “good” families where they have had this?  I would argue that more needs to be done through drug prevention education.

Kah Mirza - A small number go through CAHMS.  Teachers, youth workers etc need to pick up on that.

Mary Brett – Teachers are currently teaching harm reduction, not prevention.

Kah Mirza – Absolutely.  Drug prevention should be part of the curriculum.  We need a more systemic view.

Robert Buckland – Whilst practising as a barrister, I have seen the problems associated with cannabis.  I mean criminology as well as health problems.  We need to build with hard based evidence.  We really need to keep showing the evidence to combat the belief that cannabis is benign.

Kah Mirza - It is true that almost all of those with psychological problems have used cannabis.  Huge numbers of those with lasting addictions.

Janice Elliot -  I work and have worked with heroin addicts, but having seen my son come out of a cannabis addiction, it was much worse than the others.

Large numbers in prison use cannabis. This is usually their drug of choice.  There are huge drug problems in our prisons which need to be addressed.

Charles Walker - The trouble is that the policy makers don’t take cannabis seriously.

Janice Elliot – my son was told by a barrister that taking crack cocaine would provide mitigating circumstances, but cannabis use would not.

Grace Elliot - I now work on a helpline.  Found myself that there was no help available for cannabis users. I was just told to take hot baths etc.    I came from a very good home but I still used cannabis.  I found Mary Brett’s talk really helpful and explanatory.

Kah Mirza – People have very different genetic make ups which can affect the way that any drug affects them, legal or otherwise.  This includes cannabis.   Some people who use cannabis will go psychotic.  It affects different people in difference ways with a variety of problems.  One of the youngsters that I treat says that he is “allergic” to cannabis because of how it affects him.

Kah Mirza - One thought would be to link with anti smoking charities.  At the moment the problem is that everyone is only interested in looking at the affects of hard drugs and cannabis gets ignored.

Janice Elliot - The highest amount of crime is directly linked to cannabis use, not hard drugs!

Tony Smeeton - Is there more crime through cannabis than other drugs?  There is more crime now anyway.  Perhaps it is not statistically linked.

Kah Mirza – There is some correlation that has been proven.

Charles Walker – What we need is for policy makers to see it as a health issue.

Deidre Boyd – The job of dealing with addiction is becoming more difficult.  We need to link up with mental health services, children’s services etc.  We need joined up efforts before there are deaths.  There are no treatment services available and no rehab available for our children under the age of 18.

Charles Walker - We need to get people talking about these issues and highlight what is going on.

Deidre Boyd - MPs need to become more important in this fight and more educated in the problems that cannabis cause.

Charles Walker – Everyone here needs to talk to their MP and go and visit their surgeries to discuss how they could help in this fight.

Hugh Brett – Many people are not on record as problem users, although in reality cannabis use may be causing them and their families problems.

Kah Mirza – a good, important point.  It causes drop outs from university etc.  Schools cover up the problems they have with students using cannabis.

Mary Brett – Schools consistently refuse to take part in random drug testing and drug prevention programmes.  They feel that if they take part in anything to do with drugs they will be penalised and be perceived as a bad school with drug problems.  We need to accept that drug use is within every school.

Barry Twigg – You gave an excellent presentation, but who else does it go to?

Kah Mirza - We are trying to reach as many people as possible.  I target my own MP and try to translate the things we do in our borough into policy to be used all round the country. We try very

hard to look locally and target all services, voluntary as well as council.  We have been trying to forge local partnerships.

Barry Twigg – Even with all that effort it is far from sufficient.  What we really need is for policy makers to make funding available to tackle this problem properly.

Janice Elliot - What research are you doing to see why it affects some people more than others?

Kah Mirza - We are doing some studies scanning brains and also looking at genetic links.

Janice Elliot – What can we do now?  Do we know whether some are more at risk than others?

Kah Mirza – We ask how much they can drink before they get drunk, family history, friends etc.

Charles Walker – It is certainly true that all drugs affect, prescription or illegal affect different people in different ways.

Grace Elliot – It seems to be stages of life.  Teenagers test alcohol, drugs and other things.  Some of those suffer consequences and then stop, but an addict carries on regardless of the consequences.

Kah Mirza – Early signs need to be picked up.

Hugh Brett – I take the point about drugs affecting different people in different ways.  It seems to damage some quite severely but others seem to come away unscathed

Charles  Walker – That is why these young people are playing Russian roulette.  You don’t know sometimes if schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses are in your family until it is too late.

Kah Mirza - There is also a difference between genes and exposure.  You may be pre-disposed to schizophrenia but never have exposure to anything that switches on the gene.  We need to look further at what switches them on.

Sue Smeeton – Is there a gene?

Kah Mirza – There is definitely a genetic link.  We need to know more about how these genes work and what triggers them.

Tony Smeeton – Genes can also mutate.

Charles Walker – I am sorry; we have run out of time now and need to draw the meeting to a close.  I would like to give many thanks to Dr Kah Mirza for a very interesting presentation and many thanks to everyone for taking the time to attend this meeting.