SHEU: Cannabis reclassification has no effect on use

Wednesday, 25, Jul 2007 12:00

The reclassification of cannabis has a negligible effect on whether young people use the drug, David Regis, research manager at the Schools Health Education Unit (SHEU) has claimed.

Mr Regis said their data correlated with government figures showing drug use to be stabilising. He also highlighted that the reclassification of cannabis had had no noticeable effect on the number of people trying it, despite greater availability.

"Our figures argue reclassification has had no effect on young people's cannabis use - there's no discontinuity up or down," he said.

"I expect the exact classification of cannabis is one of last things on people's minds when they decide whether to use it or not.

"This is consistent with the curious incident of the cannabis figures after re-classification -- they did nothing."

Questioned on the government's commitment to establishing drug education programmes for primary school pupils, Mr Regis worried about the way in which such measures were to be brought in.

"Planning what you educate about and how you educate needs lots of time, training and calmness," he continued.

"And there's not too much of that being given to primary or secondary schools. Schools drug education has not being done any favours by the pressures of an overloaded curriculum, the blizzard of education initiatives and the pressures on teachers' time."

"If you want to push something in [to the curriculum], please promise that first, you'll take something out, and second, you'll provide all the resources and training needed to make sure it's done well."

The government's education measures constitute one third of their renewed drug strategy, complementing tougher sentences for dealers and treatment programmes for users.