B.C. STILL POT CAPITAL OF CANADA, THANKS TO HIGH SCHOOLERS

National statistics showing marijuana use has almost doubled over a
13-year period, confirming our province remains Canada's pot capital,
should be a bad trip for B.C. parents.

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

It's that young British Columbians, bombarded with Woodstock-era
banter 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 using cannabis in the previous 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 lengthy 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 has long ago crossed over
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 observes that an
increasing number 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.

Yesterday's Statistics Canada figures show B.C has the highest rate of
cannabis use in the nation.

Indeed, with an increasingly pushy pot lobby, drug-friendly
politicians and a 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 face.