Pubdate: Wed, 12 Oct 2005
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2005 New Zealand Herald
Contact:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: New Zealand Press Association
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

CANCER LINK BOLSTERS DRUG CRITICS

A study linking cannabis use to lung cancer is further proof that New
Zealand is long overdue for a change in its liberal approach to drug
abuse, a Wellington drug educator says.

But the claim has further highlighted the gap in stance between drug
and substance abuse hardliners and organisations such as the New
Zealand Drug Foundation.

The study, being completed by Richard Beasley of the Medical Research
Institute, said smoking three cannabis cigarettes a day was equivalent
to smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes and may be a reason behind Maori
having the world's highest lung cancer rate.

It was among research used in court last week by Wellington coroner
Garry Evans to criticise the current approach to drug use among young
people.

At the time, Mr Evans was releasing his findings into the deaths of
six young people who had inhaled butane, propane or liquid petroleum
gas.

The current focus of drug education was harm minimisation, but that
needed to change to prevention with hard-hitting advertising to back
it, Mr Evans said.

Life Education Trust founder Trevor Grice backed the coroner's calls
yesterday. He said New Zealand had among the highest rates of cannabis
use rates in the world, and it was also the same with suicides.

"Is that linked? Of course it's linked," he said.

"The libertarians say, 'Let them do it. They'll learn, it's part of
growing up.' Well sorry, it's part of growing down.

"Part of this drug education is to confine your drug use to the
weekend. But they don't realise that smoking on the weekend is like
getting a good dose of sunburn, and the sunburn doesn't go away when
the sun sets."

Drugs and alcohol were becoming increasingly embedded in society at an
increasingly younger age, and the situation would not improve until
attitudes were changed and law and order was strengthened.

But New Zealand Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said that
approach had been tested worldwide and had not worked.

"It sounds really sensible to take a tough approach ... but what that
ignores is the reality of human nature.

"Human beings have been finding ways of altering their state of mind
for thousands of years."

Mr Bell said while the foundation promoted harm minimisation, it also
had a bottom line of promoting abstinence, something which detractors
sometimes overlooked.

What worked best was a range of approaches. Harm minimisation
acknowledged that people used drugs and aimed to find effective ways
of reducing the harm, he said.

In regard to law enforcement, Mr Bell said police resources had been
shifted toward eliminating drugs at the source, including marijuana
and P-lab raids, and sentences involving harder drugs had been toughened.

"In spite all of that law enforcement people are still using
drugs.

"So I think one of the things we need to think about in New Zealand is
how we balance our enforcement with our treatment and with our
prevention."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin