Source: Evening
Standard, London
Date: January 16 2006
Author: David Cohen
Quoted: Alun Buffry http://www.ccguide.org/ablte.php
-----
Openly sold on the street, and 10 times strength it was in
seventies
Cannabis sold openly on the streets of London is up to 10
times stronger than that typically sold in the Seventies and Eighties, an
Evening Standard investigation can reveal.
Three samples of the drug acquired by a reporter at three
London locations popular with teenagers were immediately bagged and sent to a
forensic science laboratory for testing.
The results reveal that in two of the three locations,
Brixton and Charing Cross Road, the reporter had purchased "cannabis
female flowering heads", commonly known as "skunk".
The THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) concentrations - the
chemical that gets you stoned by raising dopamine levels in your brain - were
eight per cent and 11.4 per cent respectively.
Cannabis sold in the Seventies and Eighties typically had
a THC content of only one per cent.
Even more worryingly, the laboratory which tested the
samples revealed it had examined cannabis with THC levels above 20 per cent in
the past year.
For only £10 our reporter acquired about 750 milligrams of
skunk, enough to make five potent joints. Crucially, each one was equivalent to
up to 10 joints of old-style cannabis leaf.
An unsuspecting teenager naively believing the cannabis he
had acquired was harmless could end up 10 times more stoned than a typical user
of earlier decades.
The Standard set out to conduct this test before reports
that Home Secretary Charles Clarke is not expected to reverse the downgrading
of the drug from class B to C by David Blunkett.
It had previously been believed that Mr Clarke would
reclassify the drug upwards again. This had been trailed by frank admissions
that the Government had "misunderstood" the potency of today's
cannabis and because of overwhelming expert evidence citing strong links
between cannabis use among teenagers and schizophrenia.
One such long-term study, by Professor Robin Murray of the
Institute of Psychiatry in London, shows teenagers who have smoked cannabis
only three times by age 15 are 4.5 times more likely than non-users to suffer
serious mental problems, including schizophrenia, by their mid-twenties. About
40 per cent of 15-year-olds in Britain have used cannabis, the highest
proportion in Europe.
The extreme potency is partly due to the burgeoning
home-grown market, where cannabis is cultivated indoors using sophisticated
hydroponics equipment.
Fiona Coope, a forensic scientist at Scientifics Limited
who analysed our cannabis samples, said it was probably cured in Britain in a
warehouse and that the lab results accurately represented what was typically
sold on the streets today.
"Cannabis does not come with labels, so people have
little idea of the strength of the stuff they are getting," she said.
"But in three quarters of cases it will be significantly stronger than
that which we used to test back in the Eighties.
"Our results in the past year show that half of the
cannabis samples we have tested had THC levels of between five and 10 per cent.
A quarter had levels above 10 per cent, with some samples registering up to 22
per cent THC."
The story of our reporter's journey to acquire three
samples of cannabis in one afternoon highlights the ease with which such deals
are done in London, as well as the apparent ignorance of dealers as to its
potency.
Within minutes of our reporter emerging from Brixton Tube
station, he found himself propositioned by half a dozen dealers openly
commandeering the bus shelters, crammed at that hour with schoolchildren.
"Skunk? Weed?" they asked. "How much you
want?" one asked, pulling a large plastic bag from his jacket pocket.
Despite Brixton police having recently announced a
reversal of their softly-softly approach on cannabis, there was not an officer
in sight. Children as young as 12 were brushing by his elbow, chatting to each
other and to parents.
It took just a few seconds for the exchange to be
completed. "Good skunk, very strong," the dealer said. When we asked
what the THC content was, the dealer looked mystified. "THC, what's that?
The way you tell how strong it is - you smoke it."
At Camden Tube station our reporter again saw open dealing
and paid £20 for 930 milligrams of cannabis leaf that, tests revealed, had a
THC content of only one per cent. "Rip-off gear" was the verdict of
the forensic scientists. Dealers with a discerning clientele would discard the
leaf and only sell the flowering heads because that is where the potency and
value is.
But the third venue, Charing Cross Road, was the source of
cannabis with a THC concentration of 11.4 per cent.
Unfortunately, it is teenagers experimenting with drugs,
rather than regular users who may have a relationship with a dealer, who are
likely to end up buying skunk on the street.
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity
Sane says many who supported liberalisation of cannabis laws do not realise how
strong it has become. Skunk is 10 times stronger than "grass".
She says: "Although for 90 per cent of users there is
no ill effect, it is impossible to tell who are the 10 per cent for whom it
will trigger severe psychotic breakdown and sometimes violent behaviour."
Alun Buffry of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said:
"While home-grown is much stronger today than it was in the Seventies, it
is not much stronger than that which was imported from countries such as Thailand
and Jamaica and which accounted for 80 per cent of supplies back then.
"We accept cannabis can be dangerous to some
teenagers but nevertheless we are for cannabis being completely declassified.
"If there are mental health risks associated with its
use, it's best if it is dealt with under a legal regime, just like
alcohol."