Surprisingly, given the media debate, the strategy did not include plans to reclassify cannabis back to a class B drug, though there are still rumblings that such a move may be made.
There are two schools of thought on the cannabis issue. Some of those working with young people feel the shift to a class C drug, combined with the increasing strength of 'skunk', has fuelled a dramatic rise in mental health and other problems. Others discount this, arguing that the shift freed police to focus on drug dealing and more serious activity.
If you look at the findings from the Department of Health interviews with young people then drug use seems to have gone down between 2001 and 2006 and stands at about 10 per cent. This fall in the proportion of young people using drugs is echoed by research from Rainer Communities that Care.
What is undeniable is the importance of education and prevention. Most experts agree that cannabis use is especially risky for very young or heavy users. The commitment to continuing and even expanding the Frank campaign in the strategy is welcome, though undermined by last year's cuts to youth drug services after the Home Office found the number of young users had fallen.
I thought the purpose of evidence-based policy was to identify what works and do more of it, not cut back once you start to see success. We can only hope that the review of substance misuse education recognises this and ensures that education and prevention work remains central to government activity.
In particular, the need for targeted work for young people who are particularly at risk of drug misuse has to be met, including those affected by parents' drug use. There are positive measures in the strategy to work with supporting families, which will be led by the Social Exclusion Task Force. In addition, commitments to fast-track problematic drug users with dependents into treatment could help prevent some of the hidden harm of substance misuse.
All of this says relatively little about the most common substance misuse issue for young people - alcohol. We will have to wait for the summer's alcohol action plan for that.
- David Chater is head of policy at Rainer and a volunteer mentor working with young people on release from custody
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