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Yvonne Davies Q and A session APPG 21st October 2013

by CanSS, posted 21 10 2013

Yvonne Davies Q and A session APPG 21st October 2013

Dr Ian Oliver:
Why did you not take legal advice?
 
Yvonne Davies:
You are only allowed to take a supporter who is not allowed to speak for you.  In hindsight I would have taken a solicitor but I was led to believe that it was just a “back to duty” talk.  A colleague who in the past had been summoned to the Justices Clerk took a solicitor over something that had happened three years before.  She had been suspended.  The solicitor insisted on speaking for her and the suspension was overturned, but usually, you are not allowed to have anyone represent you.
 
John Graham – RAPT:
I go into schools and tell them the science of cannabis use.  Teenagers do prick up their ears when they are told the truth and understand the dangers.
 
Yvonne Davies:
I go into primary schools and explain to them how you are unable to think clearly when you use cannabis.  I tell them it is like being in a thick fog.  You have to keep talk with the younger ones quite basic and tailor it to their age.  When you are talking to the older kids you can tell them more and more of the science.
 
Tony Bright:
What difference can you make to kids already on cannabis?  Nothing seems to have changed in 30 years.  You make it sound simple.  It is just not accessible to most people unless you can pay for things.  How can you make a difference? We live in South London and there just does not seem to be anything.
 
Charles Walker:
Yvonne, in your community, you say that you have 21 counsellors that work freely.  How did you set it up?
 
Yvonne Davies:
I asked the local colleges if they would get their students to do work experience with us.  All counselling students need between 100 and 150 hours of practice to get their qualifications.  After they have qualified, we find that they still stay with us and give us some of their time.
 
Estelle Carolle:
Our 19 year old son took skunk cannabis which made him very ill.  He had to be sectioned.  We managed to obtain short term talking therapy but there seems to be nothing for long term therapy.  There seems to be so few resources to prevent relapse.  There is a skunk epidemic in our schools and with our young people.  Our son is a different person now due to using it. People need to be warned.
 
Yvonne Davies:
You as parents need support too.
 
Tom Powers – CRI
There is an open access centre at King’s Cross.  There are also some other charities to help.  I can give you some details afterwards that may help you.

 
Estelle Carolle:
The Government need to do more.  There should be somewhere for parents to get help.
 
Tom Powers:
I will help with any information that I can tonight.
 
Jenny Mathias – Food for All
What age do you think you should do dug education?  We really need to get to them before they reach secondary school.
 
Yvonne Davies:
The problem is that is left to voluntary services to provide this education and service.
 
Mary Brett:
The official drug education policy is Harm Reduction.  That is dreadful.  It can and does act as a green light to some children.  Why teach them to take drugs safely?  They are illegal and dangerous.
We just can’t get into state schools at the moment.  Schools don’t like to admit that they have a drug problem because they think it reflects badly on them.  We are going in to private schools at the moment.  We need to show the kids scientific evidence.  They take notice when they know how cannabis works on their brains.  I started with the kids in my own school where I was a biology teacher.
Schools used to teach drug prevention, now everything is based on harm reduction which assumes that all children are going to use drugs.  Harm reduction has no place in drug prevention education.  It only has a place once drugs have started to be used.
 
Jean Khan:
My son is schizophrenic after taking up skunk while at University.  What do you think of the drug liberalisation that is being suggested?  I am horrified.  It is going to open the flood gates as more kids will use it if it is legal or decriminalised.
 
Charles Walker:
We have already seen the enormous social costs attached to alcohol use which has got so much worse since the relaxing of licensing.  The same thing would happen with drug legalisation.  There would be more users and more problems.  As I have said before, you can repair septums after cocaine use, but you cannot repair a damaged brain.  Skunk is absolutely toxic.  If there is already a predisposition to schizophrenia, it just blows the gates open.  Even if you don’t have a predisposition, it causes huge damage.  Policy makers have just not caught up with the risks attached to skunk use.
 
Tony Smeeton:
I heartily agree.  My wife Sue and I run the Southmead project in Bristol to help addicts.  The problem is policy makers seem to have given up.  They say the war on drugs hasn’t worked.  I say, if something seems too hard to do – work harder at it to make it work.  The Durham Police Officer is a lunatic.  I found Yvonne’s talk very moving.   We also have a group for the families and friends of addicted loved ones.  The Local Authority used to fund it but now we have to fund raise to keep it going.  We also raise funds for a paid Drug Counsellor.  We still keep it free to parents and families who often feel totally alone.
 
 

Dr Ian Oliver:
A huge problem is when you have dual diagnosis.  Some consultants only deal with the addiction where as another deals with the mental health aspect.  Both say that it is not their problem and parents are bounced from one to the other trying to get help.  It should be dealt with as one problem.  The whole problem of dealing with drugs globally is that it is not being done uniformly.
 
Ruti Ahronee:
I go into schools with the Amy Winehouse Foundation to do drug education.  We only get in because of the name of the foundation.  How can other drug prevention charities get into schools to provide good quality education?
 
Charles Walker:
The Welsh Assembly has put a counsellor into every school.  There are so many issues facing young people.  We really do need people in schools who recognise the difficulties when they arise.  They could also help with health issues in schools.  Education must be drug prevention.  Children do need to be given the bald hard facts.
 
Barry Twigg:
What are we going to do?  It has got worse and worse.  More and more schools are independent now.  Drug education just doesn’t happen now.  Schools are worried that it will give them a bad name.  What are the government going to do?  They need to lay down a policy and stick to it.
 
Charles Walker:
We need to watch what is happening in Wales.
 
Dr Ian Oliver:
Whilst I applaud the work that the charities are doing in schools, it is also a generational thing.  We need to talk to doctors, midwives and teachers.  They are not receiving proper drug education during their training so their knowledge is poor.  The police officer is Durham is a nutter!  Also, the President of Prison Governors wants legalisation.  We really do need to educate those who influence children.  Very little comes from government. We need to keep educating.
 
Mary Brett:   
The government have now put drug education in the hands of the local authority that can choose to do whatever they like with it.  
 
Dawn Dowuana-Hyde:
I am a social worker.  It is a lottery with dual diagnosis.  They bounce them about from one to the other.   It really doesn’t matter which came first – the drugs or the mental health – they should be treated as a whole.  So many of our young people are falling through the net as it really does depend on where you live what is on offer.  Some are self- medicating and we just set them up to fail as there is no support for them.   Parents are entitled to carer’s assessment as they are the ones that are picking up the pieces but no one tells them they can get it.  I have been a social worker for 12 years but I am still working with others who know nothing about drug use and misuse.
 
Yvonne Davies:
Mental health is still very much the poor relation.  We need to raise awareness of what is going on and try to change things.
 
 

Kathy Gyngell:
The worst problem is the total lack of awareness.  The ACMD which advises the government is not giving the correct information.  Charles, can you not talk to them?   They need to talk to parents about this.  David Nutt says that there is no evidence because GPs just don’t report it.  That perception just must not be allowed to continue.   The ACMD and the government must listen to what is going on.
 
Charles Walker:
The BBC is biased.  They never talk about addiction to drugs.  They need new information.
 
Kathy Gyngell:
Numbers are hidden.  The official numbers are just not there because doctors are just not reporting the problems.  Cannabis use is seen as an aside.
 
Charles Walker:
Every single person here should make an appointment and go and see their Member of Parliament.  We need to get on their case and we need to be more assertive.  We are all being too polite and middle England.
 
Barry Twigg:
We need more positive comment.  Lots of people now recognise that we need dual help and this must be provided.  Mental health and addiction must be dealt with at the same time.  Lots of youngsters have already fallen through the net.
 
Amy Sinadinos:  CRI
We are finding that it is impossible to get funding for purely cannabis use so we are left trying to manage it within the community.  Rehabs only want class A addiction and will not take purely cannabis.  We need to try to change their opinion to accept the dangers of cannabis.
 
Kim Heales:
Although some of them have large budgets, Tier 4 services do not see cannabis as a problem.  It needs to be residential but you can’t get anyone in for purely cannabis.
 
Mary Brett:
29% of all new cases in the under 25s  going in to treatment are for cannabis.
 
Kathy Gyngell:
In Amsterdam, treatment centres treat everything and keep figures.  The highest treatment need is for alcohol, the next highest is for cannabis which reflects its use in the population.  Alcohol is the most widely used substance followed by cannabis.
 
Jean Khan:
The bottom line is that community support has broken down.  There is very little support unless you can pay.  Treatment centres are very expensive.  There just doesn’t seem to be anything out there to help you.  Schizophrenia is lifelong.
 
John Graham:
I have an overall observation.  The call for liberalisation/legalisation is social engineering.  There is no money to police it.  One thing noticeable is that with people who are in residential treatment and who are using cannabis do not recognise it as an illegal drug.

FRANK is just a joke.  Young people think that it is ridiculous.      What is sinister is that it is being allowed to develop.  It doesn’t recognise that cannabis causes long term mental illness.
 
Mary Brett:
I have been battling with FRANK for years.  When they relaunched it, I contacted them and offered to correct their information and work with them.  I had lengthy correspondence with the ministers and civil servants responsible for delivering it.  After I had sent them the corrected information, I was devastated to find that they had ignored it and nothing was put in.  I contacted them and finally several weeks later they put two small amendments in, but much was not changed.  I asked them where they got their scientific information and was told John Moore’s University in Liverpool.  This is the birthplace of harm reduction education!  Skunk is hardly mentioned on FRANK.  They have the wrong facts (wrong strengths).  They say that current skunk is twice as strong as the old herbal cannabis.  This is wrong.  It is at least eight times as strong. In 2008 (last Potency study, Home Office) average THC in skunk was 16.2%, old fashioned cannabis of the sixties and seventies was 1-2%.  I also gave evidence to the Home Office Affairs Select Committee.  They took evidence from TRANSFORM, which is a legalisation charity. They wanted more harm reduction information in FRANK, and ignored  any drug prevention information.   I am still battling with FRANK to get the information corrected and up to date.
 
Yvonne Davies:
It kills people.  That is the message!
 
Mary Brett:
Cannabis can have a psychotic effect even on those who are not genetically disposed.  Professor Robin Murray did experiments with colleagues.  He checked them out for family history etc.  He gave them THC under laboratory conditions.  All became psychotic.  This psychosis was transient, but some took much longer to get back to normal.  This message that anyone can become psychotic with cannabis use just does not get through. They don’t need to have a genetic susceptibility.
 
John Graham:
We need to go into schools – talk to the kids about how it affects their brains.  Each person needs to listen for themselves about the dangers.  I hope this country does not legalise or decriminalise.
 
Kathy Gyngell:
The adolescent brain is not mature.  It does not recognise risky behaviour which is why we really must educate the parents.
 
Yvonne Davies:
There is a New Zealand study which says about cannabis lowering the IQ.  We must tell kids.
 
Ruti Ahronee:
I went into a school with Year 7’s.  One girl was telling me about her mother smoking.  She was in tears about how dangerous it was and how she was worried about her mum dying.  I thought that her mother must be smoking drugs as she was so upset, but it turned out that she had seen the information about how dangerous cigarette smoking was and that it caused cancer.  We need to get that same information about cannabis out.  When I was at school smoking was considered cool.  It isn’t now because of education.  The government needs to spend the same amount to educate children about cannabis. It would work.
 
Jennie Mathias:
We must all work together to get into schools to get this information across.  We should as concerned people, which is why we are all here, work together.
 

Dawn Dowuana-Hyde:
Drug awareness needs to be on-going.
 
Jennie Mathias:
It needs to be early before peer pressure sets in.  We mustn’t underestimate peer pressure.
 
Mary Brett:
Children need to have an excuse not to take drugs.  They need to be able to say to their friends that they are not taking drugs because it will damage their health and that there is a risk of being caught. When I was teaching, we had drug dogs come into the school.  The majority of parents (98%), 94% of staff and 82% of children approved the scheme.  Children liked it because they could say to their friends that they did not want to be caught by the sniffer dogs and it gave them an excuse to say no.
 
Yvonne Davies:
We had a similar scheme with sniffer dogs.  We did at one time have a problem with one child in tears because she was afraid that she would be picked out because her father smoked cannabis
And she thought that she would smell of it.
 
Lucy Dawe:
I wonder how many of the general public would vote for decriminalisation or legalisation if they really knew the dangers of skunk.  We have to work hard to get the message of its dangers out. Skunk cannabis is destroying the lives of many of our young people.  It destroys their families. Families are being left isolated with nowhere to turn for help.  The BBC is biased and very rarely acknowledges any dangers of cannabis whilst allowing those who advocate legalisation to be unchallenged.  This government promised us drug prevention education but this has not happened. They employ services that are not effective in stopping drug use.  They say that the Just Say No campaign is not effective, but the ones that are being used now aim only to help two children over two classes.  Each class has around 30 kids so they are only aiming to help two out of 60.  That is diabolical!  The Just say no campaign halved cannabis use. The pro legalisers are very loud and very organised.  Every time that something appears in the press about the dangers of cannabis, they have their comment warriors attacking the articles.  I answer the queries to our charity, Cannabis Skunk Sense.  Whenever articles about the dangers of cannabis are in the press or media, or if Cannabis Skunk Sense is asked to comment or take part in radio programmes, we are subjected to a barrage of threatening, foul mouthed and unpleasant emails and telephone calls from the pro-legalisers.  We have had personal threats as well as threats to attack our website.  Together we have to get our message out.  It is so important that we stop the lives of both our young people and their families being ruined.  Could I ask all of you here to join us in helping to get this information out?  It is only by sharing our stories and letting people know of the dangers that we can change things. If you can help, please leave us with your details.  We are frequently asked by the media if we could put them in touch with people to talk to.
 
Dr Ian Oliver:
The Just say no Campaign was even more significant.  Many American service men could not be released in civilian life because of their drugs habits when they returned.  The campaign significantly reduced drug use and this reduced use was sustained.
 
Mary Brett:
The ‘Just say no’ campaign found that among the 12-17 year olds, cannabis use dropped from 17% to just above 4%.
 
Barry Twigg:
Everyone doing a little is very effective.  It is called cascading. Information goes from the top like an inverted triangle.  By educating parents, teachers, doctors etc. information is then passed down.
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Ruti Ahronee:
Teachers do need education.  I am abundantly aware that some of the teachers at the schools I visit are very much in need of education.  Many tell me that the kids know more than they do.
 
Mary Brett:
I am sorry that we now have to close the meeting.  Thank you all for coming.