Police are going online in a new initiative to warn young people in the Bradford district about the dangers of cannabis and legal highs. The first in a new series of West Yorkshire Police live webchats takes place on Monday when the public will be invited to ask questions. Police and health experts will be on hand to provide answers to questions, which could range from worries about friends using cannabis and other drugs; how to identify a cannabis farm; the legality of ‘legal highs;’ and the health implications of substances.
The first session will take place online via the West Yorkshire Police website on Monday, from 7pm, and will last approximately an hour.
West Yorkshire Police drugs co-ordinator Bryan Dent said that about 950 cannabis farms had been discovered throughout the force’s area in 2012. Mr Dent said: “That is a high figure, but we pride ourselves on the fact that we are proactive in looking for them. We are happy to respond to information from the community, and a large percentage of those farms will have been found because people in the community have stopped neighbourhood policing officers and told them about their suspicions. “There are going to be other cannabis farms out there and we hope events like this will give people the confidence that if they ring their local NPT we will do something about it.”
Mr Dent said the idea of the online question and answer sessions was to make West Yorkshire a safer place. “By raising these issues and helping people to be more knowledgeable about them, we hope it will help them to feel safer and be safer. Our focus is on making West Yorkshire a safer place.”
Mr Dent said the danger from legal highs was a big issue.
“The drugs market place is changing significantly. Less young people are being introduced to heroin and crack cocaine. We think that void is being filled by substances such as legal highs. The worrying thing for the people consuming them is that we don’t know what the short and long-term effects of taking them will be. Just because they are legal does not mean that they are safe.”
Anyone who wants to take part in the website session, either to ask a question or simply view the discussion, can do so through the link
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/drugswebchat
