Letter delivered to 10 Downing Street, 29/01/04
Mr. Tony Blair Prime Minister
The Houses of Parliament
London
28/1/04
Dear Mr Blair
I am coming to London today for the sole purpose of handing this letter in to you at 10 Downing Street.
I am, by profession, a Primary Head Teacher, but on account of the systematic long-term neglect of our young people who have been overtaken by drugs, I have, since 1986 worked exclusively with addicted people and their families. This has been a salutary experience. Over the past eighteen years I have worked 'hands on' where the truth in all its rawness cannot be hidden. I am deeply concerned and shocked by the lack of leadership by Government in the fight against this scourge which has too often destroyed the minds of the brightest and best of our young people.
The proposed reclassifying of cannabis is seriously misguided. It is yet another nail in the coffin of our young people. Out of the hundreds of young people who come to me for help, almost all started their decent into depravity with a joint of cannabis. I witnessed this first- hand in Possilpark, in the seventies which was later to become the mecca for both drug dealers and young Scots people trapped by the drug. At that time I was involved in organizing a drama group, which was overseen by a resident of Possilpark, which was set up specifically to keep young people away from the 'blaw' - the current name for Cannabis in the seventies. The dealers, who are still dealing twenty years later, i.e. the McGoverns, the Lyons , the Daniels, Tam McGraw and others, have lived a charmed life while our young people have been criminalized, ostracized, physically and mentally damaged, imprisoned, neglected and had their health undermined by being put on long-term hold on methadone, to keep down the crime figures, while they still smoke cannabis, and live with depression and paranoia. Needless to say, many develop serious mental problems.
Before I started this work, I educated myself by reading all the research that I could get my hands on from Drugwatch America, Sweden, Eurad, and elsewhere. I read up the results of research, compiled by specialists, which were shared at major seminars in Holland, Norway, Sweden, France and Ireland as well as Britain. The truth about the dangerous nature of the current strains of cannabis was clearly documented, but no protective measures were taken in this country. It was known that this cannabis, that the young people were smoking, was at least nine times stronger than the cannabis in the sixties. The red signal was clear but ignored.
I have watched my friend's son, her only child, deteriorate into a schizophrenic patient who is in a locked psychiatric ward through long-term cannabis use. I have wept with a parent whose student son grew cannabis in his flat and went on to lose his life. I have comforted a student who sold cannabis to her AA student boyfriend, who committed suicide through addiction to cannabis. I have been involved with many families where children have dropped out of school and Universities. I could fill this page very easily with ruined prospects and ruined lives.
I have heard all 'half-baked' arguments in favour of reclassifying cannabis including the one that it is good for sick people. The argument that offends me the most is the glib one put forward by David Blunkett,' It will free up police time'. That is in fact the very last thing it will do. He must surely know that, unless he is completely out of touch with young people and the whole drug scene. Does he (and do you) really not appreciate that cannabis leads to anti-social behaviour, starting in the classroom and progressing to the street corner where it is often mixed with alcohol and pills.? Does he, and do you, not wonder why there is one verbal or physical attack on a teacher in the classroom every twelve minutes. This is Britain 2004.
How can I say this? Simply because since 1990 I have taken young people into my home to help them break free from hard drugs. Invariably their tragic story begins with a giggle on cannabis in the school playground, a shed, a park, or a street corner or club. They have come to the end of themselves and are homeless, living out of control on various substances and often not far from death. The drug that they would not take again, once I have detoxed them, is cannabis on account of the way they felt after long-term use. They use words like evil, in darkness, unreal, warped. One boy explained that at first it was 'trippy' for three or four hours, but later it became highly addictive and before he knew it he could recognize the mood swings and how he became irritable and angry without it. This boy said 'It was easy to slip into heroin, I couldn't communicate with people and I would run away and hide, I suppose I was borderline schizophrenic. My central nervous system seemed to be shaking. I had smoked cannabis on a regular basis up to twenty years old and got away with it, but the symptoms developed. I no longer felt mellow but instead had a racy uncomfortable trip, I keep wondering why I took it but I couldn't any longer say no. After a few years of smoking cannabis I was breaking into houses and then I vandalized the houses as well as a kind of badness came into me, I ended up in Police custody but was too young to prosecute. I was breaking into supermarkets at sixteen possibly through anger because of what I had become. I became a drug and alcohol addict and this continued until I was thirty five years old. I had forty convictions by the age of 29 yrs old.
Drug prevention in this nation is frowned upon. Drug projects set up to prevent the spread of addiction and lavishly funded like 'Lifeline' or 'Drugscope' are trendy and make drug taking seem like a fun thing to do. Projects like these are called on to inform the Government. The Government's choice of Mike Trace as Deputy for Keith Helliwell speaks volumes as Mike Trace appears to have been a pro-legaliser while Keith Helliwell's outlook was to bring in real drug prevention. The cost of all this madness is borne by drug addicted people and their long-suffering parents. Many pay with their lives. Family life is put under dreadful strain and many families are torn apart.
The answer to all this, by the Government, is to make matters worse by giving young people the message that it is alright to smoke cannabis so long as you do not get caught with it.
This Foundation, and possibly thousands of people known to us, call on you to rethink what you are doing. You have sold young people down the river for the so- called benefit of saving police time. These young people are our present and our future. As a Nation we cannot afford such a waste of potential and human resources. Further down the road these same young people, turned heroin addicts, will be put on methadone. Why? To keep down the crime figures. It seems to me that our young people are being sacrificed to ensure that the police have an easier ride.
We implore you to take action now and stop both this carnage and the dreadful injustice being perpetrated on families nation wide.
Yours sincerely
Maxie Richards
Chairman Maxie Richards Foundation
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