editorial comment One more example of the succes sof prohibition. One wild guess from paraphernalia: the government will be pushing for more prohibition.........

Alarm over 'huge rise'
By Bridget Carter

THE number of young schoolchildren taking cannabis has rocketed by more than 1,300 per cent, claims a report.

Some 26 per cent of boys and 27 per cent of girls aged 14 and 15 said they had taken the drug.

But in a survey in 1987 it was only two per cent of both sexes.

The problem is also growing among younger children.

Seven per cent of 12 to 13-year-old boys and six per cent of the girls told the researchers that they have taken the drug. That is up from one per cent of boys and no girls at all among those polled in the 1987 survey.

The study of 350,000 teenagers, Young People and Illegal Drugs, which is due to be published this week, was compiled by the Schools Health Education Unit. The report's author David Regis said that an increase in the availability of cannabis had contributed to the alarming rise.

Mr Regis said: "Over the past 20 years there has been a huge rise in youngsters' encounters with cannabis."

That was in contrast to other drugs, with large falls in the use of recreational drugs such as amphetamines and ecstasy since the mid-90s.

Mr Regis added: "We have also seen improvements in awareness of the dangers of drugs such as amphetamines, which is partly to do with better information about the dangers of drugs."

The figures come after cannabis was downgraded from Class B to Class C last year when David Blunkett was Home Secretary.

But in March this year his successor Charles Clarke asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to re-examine the dangers of cannabis.

He acted after researchers at Maastricht University in Holland said using it "moderately increases" the risk of psychotic symptoms among youngsters.

The latest research follows increasing concerns about the downgrading among mental health campaigners.

They say there is growing evidence that cannabis is more damaging to mental health than was previously thought.

Last year psychiatrists at King's College in London found that the earlier young people used cannabis and the more they used, the greater their chances of developing psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

The experts at the college's Institute of Psychiatry examined the link between casual use of the drug and psychosis.

They said it doubled the increase of the condition.

And they said that eliminating use of the drug would decrease the rates of the mental illness by about eight per cent.

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