FORMER EUROPEAN MP URGES CONTINUED DRUG FIGHT

A former member of the European Parliament who is in Australia and has been
visiting the north coast is calling for continued drug prohibition in the
country.

It coincides with Anti-Drugs Week, and with the revelation that half the
region's high school students have tried marijuana.

Baltic Anti-Drugs Commission member Malou Lindholm said it was parents not
polticians who called for prevention and prohibition in her home country of
Sweden.

Ms Lindholm says there is a growing myth in the region that marijuana is
"harmless", when in fact more potent strains are causing damage.

"Many parents think smoking marijuana is like when they did the same thing
during the flower power generation in the 1960s," Ms Lindholm said.

"Today some marijuana is being produced with THC [tetrahydrocannabinol]
levels of around 40 per cent which can be quite damaging psychotically."