MENTAL HEALTH CHARITY BACKS CANNABIS REGRADE
Source: Redhill and Reigate Life
Date: July 24 2007
A MENTAL health charity is backing the
reclassification of cannabis.
Chris Pascoe, South East manager for
Rethink, said there was now an accepted link between use of the drug by
high-risk groups and severe mental illness.
She was speaking after Prime Minister
Gordon Brown told MPs the UK strategy on drugs would be reviewed.
The law downgrading cannabis to the level
of less harmful drugs could be reversed. It could be moved back from class C to
class B. When it was downgraded in 2004, it was moved from a class including
amphetamines to one which covered anabolic steroids and Prozac.
Any reclassification would mean higher
penalties and more arrests of people found with the drug.
Although Ms Pascoe is in favour of the
change she said the experiences of Rethink members showed that reintroducing
tougher criminal penalties for possession and use would do nothing to reduce
use.
She said: "What most people who have
experienced the misery of developing mental illness from using cannabis want to
see is a properly-funded health campaign, not harsher laws that end up
criminalising people who have developed a health problem."
Mike Blank, chief executive of Surrey
Alcohol and Drug Advisory Service, which receives around 1,000 calls a year
from people worried about a friend or family member's excessive cannabis
smoking, agreed on links between cannabis and mental illness.
He said: "The message needs to go out
that if you have mental health problems or a history of it yourself or in your
family you should think very seriously before you consider using
cannabis."
Reigate MP Crispin Blunt, who, unlike MPs
who confessed to smoking the drug in the past, has never tried any illegal
drugs, said: "What has become much clearer is that the cannabis half the
Cabinet were smoking at university was not the same stuff people are smoking
now. It has got stronger and, I understand, can be lethally carcinogenic as
well as causing mental health problems."
One man taking a different view is Winston
Matthews, a Horley resident who stood for Parliament in the 2005 General
Election as a Legalise Cannabis Alliance candidate. He said cannabis was the
least harmful drug in classes B and C and, regardless of articles in the press,
people knew it was not very bad for them.
He said: "The downgrading in 2004
seemed to open the doors for people saying cannabis contributes to psychosis.
If you are under 15 and take it, you may develop it but it is all speculative and
they have still found no cause or link for what they call reefer madness."
But Mr Matthews said the strength of
cannabis in the 1970s and 1980s had never been recorded to be able to compare
it with potent strains such as "skunk" available now. He said cannabis
resin, or hashish, a solid substance made with parts of the cannabis plant and
often baked in cookies or meals, could now be mixed with other substances like
grit, plastic, soap or even ketamine, another recreational drug, to increase
its weight and price. These were much more likely to cause harm to those
ingesting them.
He said: "If it was legalised and
people were allowed to grow cannabis, it would keep them away from the black
market, which provides money for things like terrorism and would keep them away
from contamination."