Pubdate: Wed, 14 May 2014
Source: Dominion Post, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2014 The Dominion Post
Contact:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2550
Author: Bob McCoskrie
Note: Bob McCoskrie is the national director of Family First.
Page: A11

MARIJUANA USE DAMAGING TO HEALTH AND SOCIETY: IT SHOULD REMAIN ILLEGAL

New Zealand should not proceed down the path of decriminialisation
when it comes to marijuana, writes Bob McCoskrie.

IT IS ironic that at the same time as we ban synthetic cannabis and we
try to price and label cigarettes out of existence, supporters of
marijuana are peddling the same myths that we believed for far too
long about tobacco - that marijuana is harmless, and it can even have
health benefits.

Supporters of decriminalisation would have us believe that cannabis is
a gentle, harmless substance that gives users little more than a sense
of mellow euphoria and hurts no one else, and that legal highs
wouldn't be as attractive if we just decriminalised marijuana.

But the cannabis now in circulation is many times more powerful than
that typically found in the early 1990s. Increased potency means
increased health risks, and greater likelihood of addiction.

A Harvard University study just published in The Journal of
Neuroscience showed that using marijuana even casually can alter
critical brain structures.

Researchers from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand found
that a single cannabis joint could damage the lungs as much as smoking
up to five tobacco cigarettes one after another.

The Australian Medical Association warns that smoking marijuana risks
memory loss, psychosis, impaired driving, hallucinations, asthma and
lung cancer.

The Christchurch Health and Development study found that the risks of
driving under the influence of cannabis may now be greater than the
risks of driving under the influence of alcohol.

And there is strong evidence that it is a gateway drug to harder drugs
like cocaine, ecstasy and P.

Of course, not all cannabis users go on to the harder drugs but most
hard drug users began with illicit drugs like cannabis.

There are also links between drug use and poor educational outcomes,
unsafe sexual practices, poor work attendance and serious mental
health issues. Britain's Medical Research Council says the link
between cannabis and psychosis is clear; it wasn't 10 years ago.

Groups like the Law Commission, NORML and the Drug Foundation try to
argue that the statutory penalties for cannabis use have not changed
in over 35 years, that drug use is a health issue and we are wasting
time and resources focusing on the criminal aspect.

But research in the International Journal of Drug Policy found there
has been a substantial decline in arrests for cannabis use in New
Zealand over the past decade, and offenders rarely receive anything
other than a fine and a criminal record. Police diversion and Alcohol
and Other Drug Treatment (AODT) Courts have been increasingly used.

Drug use is both a criminal and a health issue. There is a false
dichotomy that criminal sanctions haven't worked so we should ditch
them all together and we should focus only on education and health
initiatives. We should maintain both.

Decriminalising marijuana is the wrong path if we care about public
health and public safety, and about our young people.

Then there's the smoke-screen of medicinal marijuana. In 1979, NORML
said "We'll use medical marijuana as a red-herring to give marijuana a
good name".

But a US study found that the average "patient" was a 32-year-old
white male with a history of drug and alcohol abuse and no history of
life threatening illness.

Scientists have used the marijuana plant's primary active ingredient -
THC - as a pill form for nausea and appetite stimulation, but the
"medicinal marijuana" strategy simply manipulates society's compassion
for people with serious pain and health concerns.

The "legalise but tax it" message is also seductive, but false. You
just have to compare the taxes gained on alcohol versus the horrendous
fiscal and social costs that alcohol causes to see the deficiency in
this argument. Decriminalisation would drive the price down and
increase use and harm.

It is the illegality of the drug that has kept its use low compared to
alcohol and tobacco.

The restrictions on P, heroin and cocaine will never eliminate them,
but they've prevented a pandemic.

Recently, the New Zealand police said that the harm that cannabis
causes to the wider community shouldn't be underestimated.

A feeble approach to marijuana use will simply send all the wrong
messages to our young people and to our families - that drug use isn't
that big a deal.

Tackle the nightmare of legal highs, but let's not pretend that
marijuana is a harmless substitute.
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MAP posted-by: Matt