Jayne Dowle: Be honest and be prepared to talk about drugs

I ask because my son, Jack, is 12 and he keeps putting me on the spot. And because he asks questions, so does his sister. She’s only nine. So much for the innocence of childhood, but that’s how it is these days. When I was their age, the biggest temptation I could imagine was getting my hands on some illicit cider. Now they hear their friends laughing about “weed” and witness drug deals on the street corner near where we live. When Lizzie spots a furtive-looking man in a tracksuit and another on a bike, she knows what’s going on.

They also watch the news and it has not escaped their notice that there’s a big debate brewing up again about whether drug use should be decriminalised. Nick Clegg is squaring up for reform, and a new Home Office report suggests that locking up drug users is nonsensical. Instead, it argues that usage should be treated as a health problem rather than a criminal offence. “I think the evidence personally is so overwhelming that the present status quo is not tenable,” says crime prevention Minister Norman Baker, a leading Liberal Democrat.

Downing Street meanwhile, is swiftly distancing itself from his comments, describing the call for drugs to be decriminalised as “reckless” and insisting it will never happen.

While the politicians assume their positions, we parents are left to explain what it all means. What do we say then? I think the first thing is to be honest. Whatever you might have dabbled with personally in a former life, you can’t afford to lie to your own children. If you do, and they ever find out, you blow your integrity right out of the water. If your child thinks you’re a hypocrite, they won’t trust or respect you. The danger here of course is that if you admit to something you can appear to condone it. If this particular scenario applies to you, choose your words carefully. It’s not about your past, it’s about your child’s future.

The second thing is to get yourself clued up. You wouldn’t dream of trying to advise them which GCSEs to take without doing a bit of research first. The same principle applies. Learn the names – and street-names – of all the common drugs, which classification they belong to and the penalties for possession. It’s also useful to undertake some research into the potential psychological and physical effects, both short and long-term of all the above. Pay particular attention here to the so-called “legal highs” which are now widely available on the High Street and are believed to have caused a number of deaths.

Young people are quite blinded by knowledge. If you can talk to them with a degree of factual back-up, it’s amazing the impact you can make – especially if it is a subject they assume is taboo. It is also a very good idea to come up with a few real-life “case studies” to illustrate what can happen when drugs take over a young life. Don’t stint on the degradation and desperation of a drug addict. Drugs equal glamour to teenagers. Point out that addiction is not a pretty sight. Make it clear that trying one drug easily leads to trying another, and another, each one more potent and potentially lethal.

It is also a good idea to explain about where drugs come from and how people deal them and buy them, reminding them all the time that the user is always the vulnerable one. Make the connection between that desperation and crime. This isn’t giving them the information they need to go out and score crack, it’s helping them understand the pitfalls of the process.

Does this sound difficult? Morally wrong? Beyond your understanding and experience? Well, would you rather be 
their preferred go-to source, or let them find it out from elsewhere?

I’ve seen the results of Jack’s friends typing “weed” into Google on the laptop. Would you prefer your own youngster to hear “the facts” from some Californian drop-out on YouTube or yourself? If you refuse to discuss the topic, or come down hard, it just makes the subject even more attractive and enticing to curious young minds.

In the end, our children won’t particularly care what the politicians say about the decriminalisation of drugs. They might pick up on the debate, but it will be only vaguely connected to anything which could present itself to them at school, at the skate-park or on the street corner. They will care what you say though. That’s why this is one conversation you simply can’t duck out of.