is this a child protectuon issue - wwyd??

[mebythesea]

Right not sure where to post this but usually get very sound advice from you guys so ...

Walking dd's home from school a few days ago and walked past a car belonging to a local couple who live near us. as we went by a great cloud of skunk smoke came billowing out of the car. I looked in the car and there was a baby in a carseat in the back and a toddler. Felt really sickened by this.
This family are quite rough, they live in a council house with an old man one of their their grandads maybe and lots of other people. I can never quite make out who lives there as seem to be so many different people using the house. Im pretty sure they are known to social services.
But im just now worried about these poor children being exposed to such a strong drug.

Would i be wrong to talk to the social services about my worries? Feel bad 'dobbing' them in but imo its very wrong. So what do you think?

I would like to know how you feel that you can comment on country wide use and strength/availabilty of drugs?

Across all drugs,different mixes are in different regions, we used to get people traveling into were i live because the quality of smack was better.

I would have to self disclose to get into the debate and i am not nterested in doing that.

This thread is wether the OP would be wrong to report it and no she wouldn't be.

I don't really care about who does what, when i see the effects, i think that it's a shame, but other than my immediate family and my work, i honestly am not interested.

Tea Party website?

The tea-partiers are pro-marijuana, at least, they'd like the government to butt out of it.

Sarah Palin with a joint? Would love to see THAT photo!

She would be wrong to disclose this. It would be a violation of European human rights.

ARTICLE 8

Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Sarah Palin likes the white stuff apparently

I haven't given any judgement,i think adults can do what they want, but the developing brains of children need to be handled differently.

So therefore drug taking around children is on a CP threasehold, that was the question.

Skunk were i am from, is stronger than weed, but i realy don't care, adults have the right to autonomy.

Why does that not surprise me....?

Well, talking about the developing brains of children, you need to cast your net wider and include toxins, air and water pollution, car exhausts, etc. really....

Skunk were i am from, is stronger than weed

Methinks your dealer is telling you fibs .

I have smoked cannabis for a long time, I have lived in lots of different places too, Do your own math.

Heroin is nothing like cannabis. Its ridiculous that you even added it to the conversation.

You don't have to self disclose at all, you just want a cop out.

Car fumes and industrial pollution always get me too, I never see anyone getting in a flap about that on here.

Or how cancer causing carcinogens are in shampoo, bottles, sweets, hair dye, clothing, pepsi ect.

Nah that's shit, lets just pick on some pretty awesome and useful nature.

Constable- on a personal leveli agree and personally live as ethically as possible, i am concerned about the environment, chemical use etc, on a personal level, but i don't tell anyone other adult how to live.

Unless its from a cp perspective?

Cannabis isn't a reason too flag a child up to authorities, That's just unjust, unethical and downright disgusting.

Only because of narrow minded myth perpetuation do people believe that cannabis is harmful.

If it's harmful, why is that wee lad being treated with it? If it damages his brain (which it wont) It wont be anywhere near as damaging as chemo.

most doing them are starting to early and at to greater quantity

You sure you're not on drugs?

Sorry, just teasing....

I smoke marijuana. Have done for many years. Chills me out and I've not progressed onto any of the other hard stuff. I don't know any people who do cos I don't want them around me.

Marijuana is actually a plant....

I'd rather smoke a joint to relax than take chemicals from a drug/pharmaceutical company - now THAT's what would scare me!
At least with a joint I can control my intake.

Oh, and my son is at university by the way...(i.e. parents who smoke are still responsible adults).

I don't need to google, both are sold in my street. I live on one of the roughest estates (yes council) in a deprived North West city.
Two strands are being sold, what the kids buy is skunk because it is stronger,sogets them stoned cheaper.

Sorry i haven't done a chemical analysis on them, it wouldn't interest me to do so, i just know that there are different products on the market both marketed as harmless weed, but they aren't the same and don't have the same effect.

I once read about children in Florida who were encouraged in school to report their marijuana-smoking parents. So they would be sentenced to jail and the kids put in care.

Such a caring society, eh?!

Well i do think its a cp issue because children are being exposed to it in a confined space. They are powerless to stop it or get out. Also there is tonnes of evidence that smoking weed and in particular skunk - which is a chemically altered hydrophonic plant (not totally natural as some of you are saying) causes changes in brain especially in children and young people. And there is lots of eviodence that skunk os much stronger than normal natural weed and does cause mh problems.

By all means report your concerns but by itself its not cp/damaging kids, anymore than wine drinking and a hell of lot less than than dv and parents who despise each other.

Is smoking a cigarette around a child a cp issue? How about a few glasses of wine? Or exposure to sleazy media?

All of these are truly damaging to children, more so than a bit of skunk, which is, in reality a flower

What an absolute load of tosh.

It is quite possible to get a high from being very close to the smoke from a skunk joint. I very much doubt wine has fumes which would intoxicate via inhalation.

I also agree with Birds. There are regionally different names for cannabis. I lived in the NW for most of my life, and weed up there is not skunk. If you said you were smoking weed, you would be smoking loose green. If you said you were smoking black, you would be smoking resin, and if you said you were smoking skunk, you would be smoking skunk.

For those doubting the effects on mental health of heavy skunk smokers, I suggest you do more proper research.

Many of the people I know (far too many) have been heavy smokers of skunk since their teens.. and the vast majority of them have got mental health problems, to the point that some have even been sectioned, and two have committed suicide.

Skunk causes paranoia, mood swings, and more, and is in a different league to the old school spliff that most of us used to smoke in the 80's and before.

And while is it true that smoking cannabis does not always lead to the use of harder drugs, it is also true that most hard drug users started off on cannabis and progressed.. simply because that is the social scene that they mix in. Very few of the people I know have only ever smoked dope... they also do speed, coke, ketamine, e's, and any other street drug that is cheap and easy to get hold of. Drug dealers do not make a lot of money from selling cannabis, and rarely sell just that either.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8386344.stm

Well said squeaky. Of course drinking heavily, alcholism etc is damaging but in a different way as are environmental polutants etc and dv... Don't know why they've been brought into the debate... But skunk is physically damaging to brain development and thats not even touching on the damage caused to the childrens lungs from secondary smoke inhalation. Those of you who dont know the differencew between weed and skunk need to do your research. Skunk is altered chemically to produce much higher levels thc. Anyway i think ive got the general gist of what yall think. Thanks

The difference between skunk and weed:

The naturally occurring cannabis plant, grown outdoors, unhybridised and allowed to cross-fertilise, will produce weed. It has a balance of the two main active constituents - THC and CBD - which will produce a relatively mild, mellow, relaxed smoke. In appearance it will be generally dark green and is likely to have seeds in it.

Skunk (used as shorthand for all the strong, hybridised strains that have appeared over the last 20 years or so, of which skunk is only one) is an F1 hybrid. It has been selected for much higher levels of THC and much lower levels of CBD. It is then grown intensively using indoor lights and hydroponic systems which further increases the THC levels. Finally, male and female plants are separated so that it doesn't set seed. This is to keep it producing THC and prevent it from producing CBD, which it naturally would if allowed to go to seed. The result is a much stronger 'buzzier' smoke with almost none of the mellowness of traditional grass/weed. In appearance it will be pale greyish green, pure flower buds with little sparkly 'crystals' of THC all over it. It will have no seeds in it.

If you were to take some 'skunk' plants, allow them to cross fertilise and then grow the seeds in the traditional outdoor manner, you would get something approximating old fashioned weed because F1 hybrids don't breed 'true'. In that sense, weed and skunk are the same thing - but only in the sense that a wild carrot is the same as a modern cultivar

HTH

Proper old-fashioned weed is quite hard to come by so it's no surprise that most people don't know the difference.

In terms of harm, I'd say old fashioned weed is probably less harmful than alcohol, but skunk, which hasn't been around for long enough to know the full extent of the harm caused, is almost certainly contributing to MH problems, especially among young people. Both also share all the risks of smoking, along with quite a few additional harmful chemicals. Neither should be smoked around children, especially in an enclosed space.