Evil weed

I am currently working on a feature about the health risks of cannabis smoking to young people.

We have all heard by now of the risks to mental health associated with the drug. The Government's new FRANK campaign, which coincides with the reclassification of the drug from Class C to Class B, has focussed on psychological risks, such as panic attacks, paranoia and depression .

Although it is an effective campaign, they have overlooked the physical effects smoking cannabis can have on young people's health.

As part of my research for the feature, I have interview the British Lung Foundation, National Treatment Agency, a leading consultant physician in respiratory medicine, Dr Onn Min Kon and the chief executive of the charity Drugscope.

Research has found that smoking a few joints a night could do as much damages to you lungs as a 20-a-day cigarette habit. And these negative health effects are being seen in people much younger than we would expect to present with lung cancer, bronchitis and other respiratory problems. The drug has also been linked with early onset of a particular type of testicular cancer in young males.

My feeling is that the reclassification will do little if not nothing to reduce usage in young people -stats even show that when the reclassification was lowered to C previously, usage decreased slightly. Though there is still more research to be done, the physical damage caused by a nation of under 25s who are experimenting with cannabis, could be a potential timebomb for the health service. As they say...where there's smoke, there's fire.

High morality

Does a drug suddenly become more dangerous just because the Government says so?

A.C. Grayling, a Philosophy Professor at Birbeck University, makes a valid point about cannabis use in the Times today, after the drug was reclassified from class B to Class C this week. At the same time there are plans to downgrade ecstasy.

He says: "Since the dawn of history people have wanted to ingest substances that alter their states of consciousness, whether for relief, recreation, spiritual experience or bliss. Coffee and chocolate are also mood and mind changers. If moralisers were logicians these would be outlawed too. At the very least alcohol, as dangerous as some of the other commonly used drugs, would be banned. Or, more sensibly, every other drug would be controlled, as alcohol is, thus at a stroke liberating the police, the public purse and the populace, who would not become any more drug-crazed than they were before 1914."

Not so much philosophy as a good dose of common sense. Which is perhaps exactly what we need.