Drugs and children

[Weechancer]

Scotland has one of the highest rates of all drug misuse of any country in the world. We are the biggest users of Cocaine. The rest of the UK is not far behind. People could learn from our Scottish experience. Here is just one aspect of this, for discussion. Our drug laws do not protect children, they protect adults and big business. E.g. You can drink alcohol from the age of 5 in the UK. but we are bringing in laws to curb people under 25 from buying alcohol. (so the sellers of alcohol will not lose their licenses) There is no age at which you cannot smoke tobacco, the only restrictions is on at what age you can buy this drug, which is now 18 yrs of age. Most cannabis smokers, many under 18 use tobacco along with their cannabis, adding to the health dangers.

There is a simple solution which would make the laws fit for purpose, but so far no politician, of any party has dared to consider it. That changing the law to make it illegal to purchase or consume tobacco or alcohol before a certain age, perhaps 18 or 21 would over the next few decades do more to reduce misuse of these drugs than anything we have tried so far. Such a law change would stop parents, siblings, and peers from supplying and sharing these drugs with minors. It would also stop adults from colluding with children in their drug use.

I have the idea that a community based campaign led by parents could easily force politicians to consider this proposal. We have had big business using pester power to target our children with sales of all sorts of unhealthy things. Parent, Pester, Power could be used to get this vital issue debated across the country.

Ok, so the idea for your campaign is to lobby government to put an age limit on buying illegal drugs?

Yes I want the government to listen to very experienced youth workers like me who has specialised in children's health issues for nearly 50 years and to take seriously the fact that drug laws do not protect children. We need laws fit for purpose. If we want to reduce harm to children from tobacco and alcohol then the laws must be effective enough to do that. Current laws are decades out of date. We keep tampering with bits of the law but none of it has reduced the ever growing use and misuse of alcohol or tobacco. The health advise is not believed and also well out of date. Empowered and well educated parents and carers could make a major difference. Unfortunately too many of them are themselves confused, il-informed and often know less about all drugs than their children. Drugs education has mainly been aimed at children, so parents are out of the loop, out of date and unable to adequately support their children in knowing the difference between facts and myths. I have run almost 4,000 health workshops for children. From them I have gathered about 30 common myths that misinform them about drugs. many of these myths came from their parents and siblings. e.g. that you can drink yourself sober, or that tobacco relaxes your, or that it is safer to eat cannabis than to smoke it. All are myths, wrong and dangerous.

Sorry GlynisIsFixed i misread your comment. My issue is not about putting a legal age on illegal or illicit drugs, that is a much more complex issue, which I am happy to comment on. What I am raising is that the laws that apply on legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol are not fit for purpose so do not protect children and young people.

I really do not like the idea of criminalising young people for trying a cigarette or an alcoholic drink. Is that what you are suggesting? I'm also not sure that Young people would refrain from cigarettes and alcohol because it was illegal.

If we criminalised youngsters then that would lead to an increased amount of referrals to social services and youth offending teams. Education is the answer rather than clogging up the criminal justice system.

Youngsters that smoke and drink get their cigarettes and alcohol on the black market anyway.

Reply to usedtobeyoung scurryfudgefacinating that both of you have come up with the main objection I have heard to my proposal that it will criminalise children. My answer to that is do you have a problem with the law that says that children under 16 cannot have sex with others? That law is there to protect children from exploitation by adults. Most of the public agree with it. The important thing to understand about legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol is that they are multi-billion pound businesses. These businesses need new recruits to keep their profits going. It is estimated that for every ten children recruited to smoking the tobacco companies will gain at least £500,000 pound. One of the reasons that female children still start smoking is the belief that it keeps hem slim. Not true. Another is that in order to be cool and use cannabis they feel they need to learn to smoke to use tobacco with cannabis. Our government is not prepared to tell people that there are safer ways to use cannabis. So you are right education is an important tool but it will never undermine the greed for profit that the tobacco and alcohol trades depend on to keep their share holders happy. Very few school do any serious tobacco education, much of the alcohol education is well out of date and delivered by teachers who at best have attended a one day training course, in their entire career. So they are well out of date. Remember too that far too many parents, siblings and peers all unthinkingly allow children to smoke and drink unaware of the damage to growing bodies and minds that is at risk. Smoking parents find it hard to say no to their children, heavy drinking parents too find it difficult to control their children's habits that were learned at home. If my law changes were in place then all adults would know that they have the back up of the law to support them in stopping their children from using these drugs before the legal age that our government allows. Most parents have no problem saying to their children - no you cannot borrow my car because you are not yet legally old enough to drive it. We need laws that support children and parents not vague laws that only support the sellers of these drugs. Tonight's Panorama highlighted the massively toxic chemical contents of the cheap illicit tobacco. Smoking one fag is equivalent to smoking 30 legally produced fags. The lead content alone was found to be 30 times what is allowed. Surely we should all be supporting any action that might discourage as many children as possible from starting to smoke.

I agree that we should discourage children from becoming users of cigarettes, alcohol, etc but not sure a law targeting the users will be enforceable or actually protect the children. We should vigorously target the sellers, parents and anyone else who facilitates exposure to harmful substances.

We do not have a problem with protection of children from sex offences but neither do we punish the child who engages in sexual activity, especially when both parties are under 16.

(Enjoying the debate but can you use paragraphs )

I also agree that children should be discouraged from using alcohol and tabbaco.
I am really not sure that a law banning young people would have any real impact apart from the negative criminalisation of young people.
People most often use illegal drugs when in their teens ( or at least start then) and the law does not seem to put them off, in your work have you really come across many young people that smoke and drink but do not use cannabis because it is illegal?
I think that the change from smoking being seen as cool is probably a more powerful tool.

reply to usedtobeyoung. We need to make a distinction between legal drugs which are sanctioned by our government with legal restrictions in place, that aim to ensure that they can only be dispensed by licensed sellers, have age restrictions, which they hope will stop use by minors, these drugs are also produced under controlled conditions, so the buyers know what they are buying. EG if you buy a bottle of wine, with 13% alcohol content, that is what you get, if it turns out to be only 5% alcohol, you can take the seller to task.

Illicit drugs are a completely different thing, this business is the second or third, biggest business in the world, with no legal controls, no licensed sellers, no quality controls, no customer service helpline to call up to complain to.

No police force, army, customs service or government in the world has succeeded in capturing more than 50-10% of these substances. They are sold 24/7 all over the UK. Even on the tiny island of Barra out in the Atlantic dealers can supply you with what you want. Add to that the newest drugs called Legal High's which are bought on the net and sent by post to your home.

The only long term hope we have of reducing the use of these substances is education that convinces the users that they are being ripped off, are likely to be seriously damaged by them or that using them will carry penalties that most people do not want to face. e.g. incarceration.

The fact is that many of the illicit drugs are in actually less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. But the public do not have the real facts. Parents in particular are, in my experience not well informed about any of the drugs that they or their children use. By drugs I mean tobacco, alcohol, over the counter medicines, herbal remedies and the nearly 2,000 illicit substances now found in the UK.

Fact: there has been some reduction in the number of children starting to smoke, one of the main reasons for that is not that they have made a health choice, but simply that their pocket money will not stretch to funding their mobile phone and music downloads as well as their smoking.

Reply toscurryfunge. it is worth knowing that in Scotland we never had a single prosecution for selling tobacco to children until about two years ago. That is an example of not just a law that is not fit for purpose, because you can smoke at any age, but not purchase until 18, now. The police and others did not want to criminalise children so they just ignored the law on smoking. Resulting in literally hundreds of thousands of young smokers being recruited to that dangerous habit. Only now are we addressing this.

For over 45 years we have been trying to target the sellers of illicit drugs and all that has happened is that more and more substances are now on the market than ever before. One lesson we could learn from the American prohibition is that it did not work. The criminals just set about finding other ways to get the booze to the boozers.

My proposed law changes would not be about blaming the kids. It would be about using the law to pull them into a caring system that would educate them, rehabilitate those that are damaged by their drug use and address the issue of irresponsible adults coluding with children in their drug use.

Across the UK there is arrest referral schemes that aim to get those badly affected by alcohol and illicit drugs into treatment rather than into prisons, which is no place to go for help with an addiction.

We need effective laws, that are accepted by the public as being sensible, are then fairly enforced by the police and others in order to protect children and vulnerable adults from exploitation by legal and illicit drug sellers, many of whom have no morals and complete disregard for the health of our citizens.

Another Myth I have picked up from my work with young people. If you put alcohol in your eye you get drunk faster. That nonsense came from a popular video that young people loved to watch.

A big issue for parents and carers of children is that they are so drug illiterate themselves that they do not even know where to start when talking to their kids about it.

All the research tells us that the 'Just Say No" messages are a waste of time. Kids are not daft, they know that most people do not die of illicit drugs. 574 deaths in Scotland last count. 13,500 smoking deaths and around 1200 alcohol related.

Most drug deaths are from cocktails of drugs and amongst people who are between 25 and 55 age group. Not kids.

In Scotland we are heading for our scottish parliament elections so a good time to get the political parties committed to some sensible action. At each election I have challenged all the parties to commit to actions that will reduce drug use in children. Here is my challenge to them this time.

THREE IMMEDIATE ACTIONS THAT POLITICIANS COULD TAKE TO PROTECT MINORS FROM SERIOUS HARM FROM DRUG USE.

1 REVISE THE LAWS ON TOBACCO, ALCOHOL AND ILLICIT DRUGS, TO ENSURE THAT OUR LAWS ARE EFFECTIVE IN SUPPORTING ACTIONS, TO PREVENT MINORS FROM COMING TO HARM FROM DRUG USE, AND MISUSE.

2 PROVIDE A COMPREHENSIVE, COUNTRY-WIDE, PROGRAMME OF DRUGS EDUCATION FOR PARENTS AND ALL CARERS OF MINORS, TO EMPOWER ADULTS WHO WANT TO HELP THEIR CHILDREN TO AVOID BEING SERIOUS HARMED FROM USING OR MISUSING, DRUGS.

3 LOOK AGAIN AT HOW WE DESCRIBE AND CLASSIFY DRUGS AND DRUG MISUSE, TO PROVIDE THE BEST AND MOST RELIABLE INFORMATION POSSIBLE, FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION ON DRUGS.

THIS ACTION IS ESSENTIAL FOR ENSURING THAT THE PUBLIC CAN TRUST THE HEALTH INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE STATE, TO GUIDE THEM IN THEIR USE OF DRUGS THAT ARE LIKELY TO IMPACT ON THEIR CHILDREN?S HEALTH.

Any feedback or comments from mumsnetters would be very welcome.