CANNABIS TOPS LIST OF ILLICIT DRUGS SENDING PEOPLE TO HOSPITAL

Cannabis use is causing more admissions to publicly-funded hospitals
than all of the other illegal drugs combined, a police drugs
specialist has found.

Police are not yet revealing full details of the findings in a new
report by National Drug Intelligence Bureau strategic drug analyst Les
Maxwell.

Details of the report, titled: New Cannabis: The Cornerstone of Illicit
Drug Harm in New Zealand, follow yesterday's release of a Drug Harm
Index which found New Zealand's drug use cost $1.3 billion in 2005 and 2006.

Parts of the report released to the Herald last night show there were
between 2205 and 2512 cannabis-related admissions to publicly-funded
hospitals between 2001 and 2005.

Hospital admissions relating to all other illicit drugs, including P,
ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, ranged from between fewer than 1500 to
2000 during the same period.

Officers at the NDIB were last night remaining tight-lipped on why
cannabis featured heavily in admission statistics. But the Drug Harm
Index shows cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the
country, with 373,310 users - well above the next most popular drug,
amphetamines, with 95,170 users.

The reasons for hospital admissions due to cannabis use include mental
illness, psychosis and accidents.

The drug harm index was designed by economists to help police and
other agencies decide where drugs do the most harm and enable them to
use resources more efficiently. Police spokesman Jon Neilson said
police already had intelligence which helped them focus on the drugs
which caused harm but the index was another tool to assist that.

National Drug Intelligence Bureau co-ordinator Stuart Mills said while
police have known the street value of drugs seized in the past, they
have never known the social impact of removing it from society.

A big advantage of the index was that police would now be able to not
only give the street cost after a big raid or seizure, but also say
what the social savings were.

"We have never had anything to say what are we achieving ... I suppose
this is giving us a measure."

That kind of information could also be helpful for appealing for funds
in future police budgets.

"If I wanted to ensure I got my fair share of the budget within police
and I had to proof what I was going to achieve in various operations,
then that's a very helpful tool."

Mr Mills said the index illustrated to the community the wider social
impacts.

"We are not just talking about the drug harm to someone else. The use
of illicit drugs within the community is affecting all of the
community ... we have seen the impact in various stories of violent
crime and addiction."

Meanwhile, Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton said while illegal
drugs cost society, the harm was dwarfed by that caused by legal drugs
alcohol and tobacco.

"If you ask the police, or medical authorities, about the times they
are called in to crises, or to accidents, to clean up human harm they
will tell you that alcohol is almost invariably involved."

Mr Anderton said tobacco caused about 4700 deaths each year, and the
social cost of alcohol misuse was $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion a year.

"If any other drug caused that number of deaths, there would be
rioting in the streets. So why do we make alcohol legal, when it
causes much more damage than any other drug? Why can we buy tobacco, a
killer drug, at the corner dairy?"