Police go soft on under-18s’ cannabis use – and many more need NHS help
PROSECUTIONS of children for possessing cannabis have plummeted – while the numbers needing medical treatment for smoking the drug have soared.
Police face accusations of going soft on use of the Class B narcotic and turning a blind eye amid fears it is being decriminalised ‘ by the back door’.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice show the number of young people convicted after being caught with marijuana fell by 54 per cent between 2006 and 2016 – from 3,062 to just 1,408.
Under-18s penalised with a caution for cannabis possession – effectively a ticking off – fell from 5,847 to 1,597, a drop of 73 per cent.
At the same time, the number of under18s needing NHS care for cannabis-related health problems has risen by a fifth – from 10,824 to more than 12,712, according to NHS statistics.
Figures from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, and analysed by the Mail, also showed that in 2009 police let off 95,000 people with a warning – in which a culprit is given a stern talking to by a police officer in the street. By 2016, this had fallen to just over 34,000.
A further 6,601 received penalty notices – on-the-spot fines of a minimum of £60 – in 2016, compared with 11,491 seven years earlier.
Neither warnings nor penalty notices could be broken down by the age of the offender.
Details of the trends come after a major study revealed the cannabis market is almost completely dominated by the dangerous super- strength ‘skunk’, which is blamed for triggering psychotic disorders.
Campaigners claim too many youngsters are let off when caught with cannabis – sending the signal that using and selling it is not a serious issue. It has sparked concerns that using cannabis has become normalised among school-age children at a time when dealers and growers are acting more brazenly.
A shocking recent report found that cannabis is responsible for 91 per cent of cases in which teenagers end up being treated for drug addiction. Despite increasing warnings over health problems linked to the drug, police chiefs in at least four forces – Derbyshire, Dorset, Surrey and Durham – have signalled that cannabis users and growers are no longer a priority.
Janie Hamilton, 65, lost her 36year-old son James to testicular cancer in 2015 after his cannabis-induced psychosis led him to refuse treatment. She now
‘Mental health timebomb’
in schools, warning young people of the risk they take in experimenting with drugs.
Mrs Hamilton, of North Dorset, said: ‘My son’s mental illness started with cannabis. The country as a whole doesn’t realise the danger and the mental health timebomb we are sitting on. If people could see, as I have, the pitiful scenes in mental health wards, of young lives derailed, there would be more of an outcry. I don’t know whose fault it is but there are a lot of individual tragedies. It’s awareness that’s needed – by everyone.’
David Spencer, of the Centre for Crime Prevention think-tank, added: ‘There is a strong body of evidence which links cannabis use with mental health, further drug use, and other criminal activity. It is completely unacceptable for law enforcement to be complicit in this trend.
‘It is high time the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice took steps to ensure the police and courts are doing the job the taxpayer funds them to do.’
David Raynes, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: ‘There are less prosecutions. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Dealing by children, mostly in schools, needs to be dealt with robustly with schools working with local police to do that when it is suspected.
‘The child who is dealing and using needs protection and schools have a duty to protect other children.’
Mary Brett, of the anti- drugs group Cannabis Skunk Sense, said: ‘Children are paying the price of police’s increasingly relaxed attitude towards cannabis abuse. The police have relegated possession of cannabis to the very bottom of their priority list, bringing the law into utter disrepute as young people know that virtually none of them will even get a slap on the wrist.’
Commander Simon Bray, the National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman on drugs policy, said: ‘Police forces are committed to dealing with offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We continue to enforce the law with full use of all the approved methods of prosecution and disposal available to us.’