KEY POINTS:
Addiction agencies are seeing primary school children smoking cannabis, despite a slight drop in adult use of the drug.
Rotorua counselling agency Te Utuhina Manaakitanga Trust said yesterday that children as young as 7 were getting help for cannabis addiction.
Clinical co-ordinator June Bythell said the agency was still seeing a steady increase in clients seeking help with cannabis and alcohol.
"We have a major problem with cannabis in our area. People are trying to make changes but it is a huge struggle for them," she said.
Other agencies in Auckland and Hamilton said they were also seeing more children starting to smoke cannabis in primary school.
Figures released this week showed that cannabis use by 15- to 45-year-olds had dropped for the first time in many years - from 20.4 per cent in 2003 to 17.9 per cent last year.
But New Zealand still has one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the developed world, second only to Canada in the last World Drug Report.
Dr Grant Christie, a child psychiatrist with the Auckland Community Alcohol and Drugs Service, said his agency commonly saw young people who had started smoking cannabis as early as 11.
He said the drug was usually given to children by their parents, a sibling or sometimes an older friend of the family.
"They are very dysfunctional families, they are not your typical everyday families. There is usually CYFS involvement, there are usually multiple agencies involved," he said.
Counties-Manukau District Health Board paediatrician Dr Peter Watson said he had never heard of any child being treated for an addiction as young as 7, but concerns commonly started at age 11 or 12.
Ted Wilson, leader of Waikato youth addiction service Whai Marama Youth Connex, said multiple drug use was common in Hamilton, mainly alcohol and marijuana.
"The young people normally start out about late primary age in an experimental stage - substances given to them by older friends or family," he said.
"So by the time they reach their early to mid teenage years they present with huge dependency issues, i.e. truancy from school, stood down from school for drug-related offences, criminal activity, fighting at school or arguing with parents."
Ms Bythell explained her Rotorua agency runs a pilot programme involving the whole family of people with addiction problems.
Dr Christie said frequent cannabis smoking at a young age put children at greater risk of developing serious mental disorders later.
"The best evidence is around the impact it has on development in terms of going to school and making friends, just normal young kids' behaviour," he said.
"The more you expose yourself to it, the more trouble you are exposing yourself to. A kid smoking one-off is not nearly the same risk as a kid who starts early and smokes heavily from that point on."
