CANNABIS TO BE FOCUS OF WAR ON DRUGS

Cannabis is expected to become a greater focus of the war on drugs, amid
growing evidence that thousands of young marijuana smokers believe it does
no harm.

Anecdotal evidence gathered by the Federal Government's top drugs advisory
body, the Australian National Council on Drugs, shows that health workers
and parents, particularly in regional areas, are disturbed by the drug's
growing popularity among young people.

As a result, the council will step up its fight against cannabis use,
putting it alongside heroin as a key community health concern. It is now
likely to advise the government to fund more research so that it can better
inform young people about the drug's effects.

Council executive officer Gino Vumbaca said the information campaign, if
accepted by the government, would not be a return to Reefer Madness, a
reference to the 1930s cult movie - used in the US as an anti-cannabis
message - in which men and women go insane after a few puffs of a marijuana
cigarette. "There is a misconception among young people that cannabis is
completely harmless," he said. "And it is not."

The effects of the drug are much debated, but council chairman Brian
Watters suggests that it can upset the psyche, is a stepping stone to
other, harder, drugs, is more carcinogenic than cigarettes, and can induce
apathy. A national drugs survey in 1998 found that 39 per cent of
Australians had, at least once in their lives, tried marijuana (up from 31
per cent in 1995).

The figures for young people were much higher.

More than 63 per cent of men and women aged between 20 and 29 had used
cannabis at least once in their lives.

During a long consultation program last year, people in rural and regional
areas told the 16-member council that alcohol was their main drug concern,
followed by cannabis use among young people. With the focus on heroin, they
felt that the cities had hijacked the drugs debate.

The council's 2001 priorities, therefore, now include the legal drugs of
alcohol and tobacco, as well as illicit drugs such as heroin.

The "big four" strategies, said Mr Vumbaca, were fighting alcohol, tobacco,
cannabis and deaths from heroin overdoses.

The council is likely to outline its cannabis strategy in a report in March.

The report will include its response to a NSW study that has recommended
that patients who relieve their pain with marijuana should be able to do so
legally, with permission from their doctor.

Major Watters, who was appointed to chair the council by the Prime
Minister, believes that more research is needed to establish the ingredient
in cannabis that relieves pain, so that it can be manufactured as an
approved medicine.

He is concerned that legalising marijuana for medical purposes could be a
"thinly veiled" attempt to achieve a broader decriminalisation of the drug.

The council's tours of regional and rural Australia also heightened its
concern about petrol sniffing in Aboriginal communities, Major Watters said.