Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

Drugs in School

Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I apologise for my yo-yo attendance during the debate. I was in my place for the opening speeches, but I had diary commitments that pre-dated the time at which I realised that I would be sitting in Committee on this Bill.

The Bill will command cross-party support, and I am afraid that I have no interesting personal confessions to make on the subject. I want to concentrate on the proposed new subsection 4A(4) to (7) in clause 1—it is an insertion into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—which relates to the dealing of drugs in the vicinity of schools. I am a little concerned that the provision specifies one hour before a school opens or after it closes. I wonder whether that will be sufficient. I am a governor of one particular secondary school and I know that it carries out activities over a much longer period than that.
 
Perhaps we could discuss the issue in Committee, as many schools conduct activities in the evenings and have homework clubs, breakfast clubs and so forth going on.

Caroline Flint: The Bill does cover that. The proposal about one hour before and after the school day would apply outside term time too. We recognise that schools are at the centre of their communities and that young people should be able to use them in the holidays as well as before and after the school day. However, we can look at the clause in more detail in Committee, to assure hon. Members on this point.

Angela Watkinson: I am grateful to the Minister for that response. We need to ensure that the restrictions that we put in place will be adequate.

I shall concentrate on why I think dealers are attracted to schools, almost like bees around a honey pot. I anticipate the intervention that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) wants to make by saying that the reason for that is that schools offer a ready source of customers. As I have said many times, I blame the style and content of drug education material for the level of demand. That material is misguided. We could do more to reduce demand, and the levels of drug taking among young people, if we stopped concentrating on harm reduction and concentrated instead on prevention. Most of the literature used to support drugs education concentrates on harm reduction and on the provision of comprehensive information about every aspect of drugs and their consumption that one could possibly imagine—and about some aspects that one could not imagine.

John Mann: The hon. Lady speaks about drug dealing outside schools. Over the past 10 years, there has been an above-average number of arrests and convictions for drug dealing in my constituency, but I can find no examples of any such incidents taking place outside school gates. Can the hon. Lady give the House specific examples from her constituency of arrests and convictions for drug dealing outside schools?

Angela Watkinson: No, I cannot, but head teachers in my area and the local education authority tell me that drugs are in circulation and in use in our schools. We must do everything possible to prevent that.

I shall give a couple of examples of printed material that I think is misguided and going in the wrong direction. It may be well intentioned, but its effect is the exact opposite of what we would want. I shall quote a paper by Mary Brett, who is well known to all of us who take an interest in this subject. Until recently, she was head of health education at Dr. Challoner's grammar school in Amersham. She says that the press

"have widely publicised the true and very alarming picture of the relationship between cannabis and psychosis, and the steady increase in the number of young psychiatric patients, 80 per cent. of whom have a cannabis history. A fact that is well played down by FRANK . . . FRANK merely suggests that 'some people can get anxious and paranoid especially if they are smoking the stronger varieties'."

By urging young people merely to take precautions and reduce the possible harm caused by cannabis use, I believe that we are missing an opportunity to warn them and so prevent them using cannabis in the first place. Brett goes on to state:

"On average, the THC content today is 5 per cent. compared with 0.5 per cent. in the sixties—10 times stronger . . . Its THC strength can vary from 9 to 27 per cent. FRANK says, 'Some people may find it too strong and the experience disturbing, while others may enjoy the greater effects'. What about those who may have an acute psychotic episode requiring hospitalisation? Why mention the fact that 'increasing amounts of this are being home grown for private use'?"

To Mary Brett's mind, that is almost "an invitation to experiment." She goes on to say:

"It is irresponsible to say that physical addiction is unlikely. Around 10 per cent. of those who ever try the drug will become addicted according to Professor Wayne Hall, the Australian researcher. And, out of the 6 million drug addicts currently in the USA, around 4 million are cannabis-dependent."

I imagine that all hon. Members received the briefing paper from the London Drug Policy Forum, in preparation for this debate. The forum is funded by the Corporation of London. It has partnerships with the 32 London boroughs, central Government and regional government, drugs service providers, law enforcement agencies and community groups. It states that its intention is—in the buzz phrase used in all these publications—

"to reduce the harm . . . concentrating on what works to improve services".

DrugScope and Turning Point, in their briefing paper which I received today, say that they produced an alternative drugs bill last year, just before Christmas, which

"emphasises treatment provision, harm reduction and improving the capacity of the health service".

All those three factors are important, but they will not work unless we reduce the number of new addicts. Providing residential treatment would be wholly unaffordable if more addicts continue to come along. Unless we stop the source, we will not be able to afford to treat the addicts that we have already.

Then there is "Score". I do not know how many hon. Members have seen that delightful little publication, but it tells people everything they could possibly want to know about drugs—what they are, what they do, every possible drug on the market and what the law says about them. But it is entirely the wrong approach to provide lots of value-free, non-judgmental information to young people who are too immature to make adult decisions with it. They need guidance and they are not getting it.

Thank heavens—how appropriate—for the Christian Institute, which comes down on the other side of the argument. It comments:

"Even drugs education does not aim to discourage drug use. 'Harm reduction' in the drugs field is a philosophy which, instead of seeking to prevent drug use, seeks to reduce some of the damaging effects of drug use."

Dr. Iddon: I am not sure that I am following the drift of the hon. Lady's comments. Is she suggesting that no harm reduction material be published and people be allowed to die?

Angela Watkinson: No. What I said was that none of those strategies will work without drug misuse prevention. They have to be underpinned by prevention, but that is not happening. Harm reduction is a damage limitation exercise and it is not enough. We need far more than that.

Dr. Iddon: The hon. Lady is trying to mix two different things. We all agree that drug abuse prevention and education are important. In fact, I would increase the amount of money spent on that. However, once a young person has embarked on trying cannabis and other drugs, perhaps experimentally to start with, they should surely know what harm they could cause themselves and how they could avoid it.

Angela Watkinson: The two policies are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they fit together. Indeed, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) made that very point. We have to get to young people much earlier and prevent them from becoming addicted in the first place. Harm reduction comes afterwards. We need more prevention built into the publications that are available and education programmes. I rarely see any comment that tells young people that drug taking is illegal and wrong, and that they should not do it. Drug literature seems to concentrate entirely on the provision of information—a description of drugs, how to take them, what will happen if they are mixed and what the social effects are. We should concentrate instead on abstinence and prevention.

Mr. Carmichael: Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we return to the days of campaigns that suggested "just say no"? Does she not think that that was demonstrated not to work at the time?

Angela Watkinson: I am saying that, and it has been demonstrated that the current policy is not working either. Perhaps we should try both together. We should tell young people to say no first, but once they are addicted we clearly have to work on harm reduction.

John Mann: Has the hon. Lady seen the fascinating research that has been carried out by DARE in Nottinghamshire? It has shown that saying no to drugs is not the message that works. It has developed programmes to teach children how to say no to things that they do not want to do, including drugs. That has been incredibly effective with 11-year-olds and is now DARE's approach to drugs education.

Angela Watkinson: The DARE project is having a great deal of success. We need to give children the tools to say no. The same applies to sex education—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Once again, I ask hon. Members to relate experiences from their constituencies or from organisations to the content of the Bill.

Angela Watkinson: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am coming to the conclusion of my remarks. The tenor of what I was saying was that the chain of events that leads to dealers being attracted to schools, because there they have a ready supply of customers, relates to the style of drugs education in schools, which is, I believe, misguided and does not concentrate sufficiently on prevention.
 
The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) suggested in his speech that drugs might be categorised according to the harm they do. That would put the responsibility fair and square on the users, who are often portrayed as victims, entirely devoid of responsibility for taking drugs. If we give them information about how harmful drugs are, they must take responsibility for their decision to take drugs in the face of all that information. In this debate, drug addicts are being portrayed only as victims. As has been said, 80 per cent. of drug addicts also have mental health problems, but 20 per cent. do not. That 20 per cent., who take illegal drugs for recreational use, must take responsibility for that decision.

Until that responsibility is taken, we must introduce tough love in what we are doing. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East said, it is no good just feeling sorry for people. It is too late for that; we have to prevent them from becoming addicts in the first place. I will support the Bill, especially the strengthening of the law creating an aggravated offence in the vicinity of schools. I wish the Bill fair weather in Committee.

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