A NATION OF POTHEADS

VANCOUVER - National statistics showing marijuana use has almost doubled
over a 13-year period, and confirming that British Columbia remains
Canada's pot capital, should be like a bad trip for parents.

It's not just that the sons and daughters of B.C. parents are the likeliest
in Canada to be charged with cannabis-related criminal offences.

It's that young British Columbians, bombarded with Woodstock-era chatter
about toking up in Vansterdam, still appear to know little of the health
dangers of deeply inhaling their potent, cancer-linked drug.

Make no mistake, it's young folks who are the big pot users.

According to Statistics Canada, nearly 40 per cent of Canada's 18- and
19-year-olds reported having used cannabis in the past year. And, as noted
in an article on marijuana use in Holland in Elsevier magazine, cannabis is
the only drug where the highest number of users are those at school.

"Teenagers tell tales of smoking dope during their breaks and teachers
looking the other way," write Gerlof Leistra and Simon Rozendaal in the
article, detailing the failure of the long Dutch experiment with going soft
on soft drugs.

Actually, authorities in Holland seem a lot like those in Canada.

They've missed no opportunity to warn citizens in the strongest terms of
the health dangers of tobacco and alcohol. Yet, they've managed to make a
complete hash of warning them about cannabis.

This despite research published in such scientific journals as Nature, the
British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association
detailing the risks of long-term cannabis use.

Today's high-strength, home-grown product, it's clear, long ago crossed the
virtual border between soft and hard drugs.

"It has also been demonstrated that cannabis contains more carcinogenic
substances than does tobacco," says the Elsevier article, reprinted in the
April edition of Reader's Digest.

Now, it used to be assumed that cannabis was non-addictive. But an article
this June in the London Observer newspaper, far from a right-wing paper,
observes that increasing numbers of Britons are becoming dependent on it.

"There is also increasing clinical evidence linking cannabis use to mental
illness, particularly schizophrenia, psychosis, anxiety and depression," it
says.

This week's StatsCan figures show B.C has the highest rates of cannabis use
in the nation. Indeed, with an increasingly pushy pot lobby, drug-friendly
politicians and compliant media, we're well on the way to mirroring the
Dutch experience.

But I feel we may find the grass isn't always greener. And we may well wind
up with egg, or something far more rotten, on our faces.