POT SMOKING HARMFUL, CANADIANS BELIEVE: POLL

OTTAWA - Most Canadians believe smoking marijuana regularly poses health
hazards, a poll commissioned by the federal government indicates.

A strong majority of people also feel trying the drug ecstasy once or twice
is as harmful as smoking cigarettes daily, according to the survey
conducted for the Health Department.

The newly released research suggests Canadians perceive drug abuse as a
health issue more than a matter for police and the courts.

The results come amid the latest round of the long-running debate infederal
circles about the merits of decriminalizing marijuana, as well as
controversy over newly popular club drugs such as ecstasy, which has been
linked to a number of deaths.

The department hired Ipsos-Reid to take the poll as a means of gauging
support for government intervention in the area of substance abuse.

The survey of 1,003 Canadians, conducted during the last week of March, is
considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points.

Sixty-seven per cent of those surveyed felt smoking cannabis on a regular
basis was harmful to the smoker or others. Forty per cent thought trying
marijuana once or twice posed harm, while 38 per cent believed it would
have little negative effect.

In a recent editorial, the Canadian Medical Association Journal said the
1.5 million Canadians who smoke marijuana for recreational purposes could
attest to the "minimal negative health effects of moderate use."

However, a 1998 paper by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, a
federally funded think-tank, said that far from being a benign drug,
marijuana can have negative effects on the respiratory system, physical
co-ordination, fetal development and memory.

Three-quarters of people surveyed by the pollster considered taking an
ecstasy tablet even once or twice to be harmful.

Dubbed the "hug drug" because of the warm feelings it produces, ecstasy -
often taken at all-night dance parties - can lead to severe dehydration and
life-threatening heat stroke. Early research suggests it may also cause
brain damage.

About the same proportion of respondents - 76 per cent - believed smoking
cigarettes daily to be damaging to health.

Alcohol was seen as more benign. Thirty-seven per cent of people said
having one or two alcoholic drinks nearly every day would be harmful.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 95 per cent felt that injecting highly addictive
drugs such as heroin and cocaine on a regular basis caused harm. Almost as
many - 90 per cent - considered injecting these drugs just once or twice to
be damaging.

Women, residents of the Atlantic provinces and Canadians aged 55 and older
were more likely than others to feel that using the drugs examined posed harm.

The survey also found drug issues were generally worrisome to Canadians.
Thirty-eight per cent of respondents said they were very concerned about
illicit drug use, consumption of alcohol and cigarette smoking in their
communities. Another 40 per cent were somewhat concerned.

Asked why one shouldn't use illicit drugs such as marijuana, heroin and
cocaine, 88 per cent of people chose the rationale "these drugs may harm
their health" over "it is against the law" - the choice of just 11 per cent.

When presented with options for addressing drug abuse, 78 per cent of those
surveyed preferred that the government assign priority to the prevention
and treatment of drug abuse, while 21 per cent said emphasis should be on
law enforcement and imprisonment of users.

In recent years, the RCMP and the association representing Canadian police
chiefs have advocated making the penalty for possession of small amounts of
marijuana a fine not unlike a parking ticket, rather than a criminal record.