SUPPORTING FAMILIES

When we first opened the doors of The First Base Agency in June 2003, one of our two primary goals was to offer information, advice and support to families living with a loved one’s drug, alcohol or gambling problem. Many things have changed over the past six years and The First Base Agency has developed the services we offer and introduced numerous new projects and activities, but Family Mediation still remains our core activity.

When we first opened, Dumfries and Galloway was deep in the grip of a heroin crisis that was as bad as any in Western Europe. For our first years, over 80% of the families who made contact with us were grappling with the nightmare of a spouse, son, daughter or grandchild being addicted to heroin. We still support many such families and the issues they face are every bit as difficult as they were back in 2003. However we now receive many less calls from families who have only just discovered that heroin has entered their family homes. Thankfully the vast majority of youngsters in our region have consigned heroin to the same dustbin as flared trousers and platform shoes: something that was once deemed cool but is now the complete opposite. Mercifully the local Drugs Industry is now finding it much, much harder to enrol new recruits. In fact the dealers hardly ever have any spare product to use to open up new markets. The local police continue to maintain a choking stranglehold on heroin supply and there is little sign of this situation changing.

Three cheers to that!

So does this mean that the region’s young people are no longer taking drugs? Sadly, the answer is no. We feel that we are in a transitional period. In the eye of a storm. The heroin hurricane has finally abated and there is a temptation to think that things can only get better. Sadly we very much doubt if this will be the case. The local youngsters might well have turned against heroin, but many still use drugs in dangerous amounts. New trends are emerging. Cannabis becomes a bigger problem every year. Statistics suggest that there are in fact less young people using cannabis as more of them become aware of its dangers. The problem is that the cannabis that is now widely used bears no relation whatsoever to the drug that many adults once enjoyed in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Much of the cannabis of the Noughties is genetically modified and tends to go under the brand name ‘Skunk’. Skunk is dramatically stronger than traditional varieties of cannabis and the problems it causes are therefore much greater. It is becoming clearer and clearer that strong cannabis can lead to a variety of mental health problems. At the lower end of the scale this can mean paranoia, depression, demotivation and aggression. It is always worth remembering that the way cannabis works is basically very simple indeed: it amplifies something that is already there. If you enjoy hot fresh doughnuts laced with sugar then you will enjoy them three times more if you are stoned. There is nothing hallucinogenic about this. All the cannabis does is magnify something that is already there. On the flip side cannabis can take well established teenage problems and double and treble them. Moodiness can become fully blown clinical depression. Anxiety about weight and acne can become full on agrophobic paranoia. Not being good at getting up can become staying in bed until after two in the afternoon. Snappiness and tetchiness can soon become in your face aggression.

Things get much, much worse when Skunk unlocks underlying, unseen mental health problems and explodes them into clinical mental illness; psychosis, schizophrenia and depression.

The problems brought on by cannabis can be a nightmare for families to deal with and many parents fail to realise that cannabis lies at the heart of what is happening as their view of the drug is still framed by their own youthful dabbling. Slowly but surely we are beginning to see more families who are battling with these horrible problems. We feel that numbers will rise steeply over the coming years. Sadly there is no prescribable medication for a cannabis problem. There is no herbal methadone. Thankfully the media is now beginning to pick up on the havoc that genetically modified cannabis is causing and public awareness is growing. As this understanding grows we anticipate many more families making contact with us.

Similar problems are being caused by a variety of so called ‘recreational’ drugs. Black market valium at £1 a pill is still easier for a 13 year old to get hold of than a four pack of lager. Speed, ecstasy, Ketamine and GHB are very common and cocaine use has been growing steadily. There is a school of thought that the recession will stop the march of cocaine in its tracks. Intelligence suggests that the South American cartels no longer have much appetite for being paid in pounds sterling and have therefore re-routed supplies back into the dollar zone. Once the recession bites in earnest it seems unlikely that Dumfries and Galloway’s economy will be capable of supporting any kind of significant cocaine problem. Of course there will still be plenty of white powder sold as cocaine, but there will probably be little actual cocaine to be found. Sadly the same cannot be said for valium which continues to be available not only in huge quantities but also at bargain basement prices. It is almost tailor made as a recession friendly drug, especially when mixed with dirt cheap alcohol.

Many young people now use cocktails of cheap drugs and booze which can be dangerous and unpredictable. Many such cocktails result in wildly unpredictable behaviour and inexplicable aggression – in short they can make youngsters very hard indeed to live with. As money runs short we anticipate that many young people will look for ways to escape the misery of unemployment and a lack of prospects via cheap and cheerful mixtures of cannabis, valium and booze. This in turn will mean that many families will seek advice on how to deal with consequences.

Will things change? Hopefully they will, but it will take time. Many young people continue to see drink and drugs as being glamorous and in real terms it has never been as cheap to get completely comatose. A couple of two litre bottles of White Lightening cider and ten blue valium would be plenty to get a group of four teenagers completely wasted and they would get change out of a £10 note.

Friday 20 March 2009