hardly surprising; availability of drugs has rocketed in recent years despite prohibition….
Incidentally the BBC’s definition of Eastern England is different to the one most other statisticians normally use – Northants is in the East Midlands and Bedfordshire should have been included in this survey.
I do think though people who start very young IME can often “burn out” a lot younger if they are not careful; getting to a stage where they are either addicted to class A’s or are suffering depression/mental health problems to the point they are just “going through the motions of life” by the time they are in their mid-late 20s (seen too many people go that way myself)
Children aged 12 ‘dealing drugs’
Children as young as 12 in the east of England have been cautioned for dealing drugs, Freedom of Information requests by the BBC News Website have found. The BBC also found that between 2002 and 2006, there were 59 reports of 12-year-olds being stopped and searched by police for drug offences.
The figures were provided by police in Cambs, Essex, Herts, Norfolk, Northants and Suffolk.
The survey has prompted calls for greater drug education in schools.
Using the Freedom of Information Act the BBC found that over the past six years:
Children as young as 12 have been found to be dealing cannabis in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk
Children as young as 11 have been cautioned for possessing drugs
A 15-year-old has been charged with supplying crack cocaine in Cambridge
In Hertfordshire, 61 13-year-olds were arrested for drug offences
Rachel Reynolds, 17, from the village of Thrapston, Northamptonshire, started taking cannabis when she was 13 years old and cocaine when she was 15.
‘Drug dealing aspiration’
She managed to get off drugs after realising how it was hurting her and has been clean of drugs for about one-and-a-half years.
Ms Reynolds said she was not surprised that the BBC survey found 12-year-olds dealing drugs.
“They are getting younger. I know nine and 10 year olds who go out and get stoned. They see it as a bit of a laugh. Everyone aspires to be big drug dealers,” she said.
She said she believed that school children should be taken into prisons to meet the victims of drug abuse.
‘Lack of treatment’
“They need to have a better understanding … they need to know what a bad trip is,” she said.
Brian Tobin, project manager for the Ipswich-based drug treatment agency Iceni Project, said he was concerned about the “lack of available treatment for young people” addicted to drugs.
“People have to wake up and smell the coffee, drugs are part and parcel of young people’s lives,” he said.
“We need to take the message about drugs, and the dangers, to schools. We need to make it part of the curriculum. It is part of our lives.”
Lindsay Edwards, head of substance misuse and crime reduction services at Hertfordshire County Council, said huge efforts had been put in to train school staff on teaching children about drugs and alcohol.
“Over the last two years in Hertfordshire we have trained about 5,000 teachers and other staff,” she said.
“I think drugs are very available and part of the work we do is about building resilience in children [against drug misuse].”
Ms Edwards said that the majority of children with drug problems they saw were aged between 15 and 17, but they had helped children as young as 12.
Donna Martin, substance misuse trainer with the Children Society’s Essex Young People’s Drug and Alcohol Service, said it was vital to get their workers out to young people on the streets and to gain the trust of young people.
Tibbs Pinter, substance misuse officer at Ipswich Borough Council, said the best way to deter children from drug use was to get them involved in other activities.
“We need to re-energize youngsters and support them in other hobbies,” he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/5243336.stm
Published: 2006/08/11 14:56:32 GMT
© BBC MMVI
