SMOKE AND MIRRORS

There is a growing clamour for change to the cannabis laws in this country.
Today, The Press launches a major series on the cannabis debate, to place
in context the calls for reform, to highlight the nature of the problem,
the state of research, the policing and educational issues, and the
political arguments.

In 1998 a health select committee chaired by National MP Brian Neeson
unanimously pitched for a review of the current law. That review, while
almost certain to go ahead, is now on hold, blocked temporarily by the
Greens, who want the issues examined by the electoral and justice committee
rather than the health committee.

This high-level political attention is mirrored by a recent two-year
government inquiry in Britain. The Runciman report, Drugs and the Law,
concluded, among other things, that cannabis, although not harmless, is "by
many of the main criteria of harm - mortality, morbidity, toxicity,
addictiveness, and relationship with other crime - less harmful to the
individual and society than any of the other major illicit drugs, or than
alcohol and tobacco".

Whatever the evidence - and it seems that there are sufficient
international studies to support the spectrum of opinion from liberal
reform to hard-line reaction - there are very real indications that in New
Zealand sections of the community remain frighteningly vulnerable to the
drug: notably adolescents and the mentally ill.

The increasing use of marijuana in our secondary schools is of grave
concern to teachers, principals, and parents up and down the country. They
see changes in personality and behaviour in adolescents exposed to
marijuana: these children - and many of them are just this - become
uncommunicative, confrontational, and unmotivated. Such observations accord
with an emerging consensus among medical researchers that for young people
whose bodies and brains are still maturing the drug can impart serious
conditions: memory impairment, attention disorders, and an adverse effect
on personal development and socialisation.

In Christchurch, initiatives have been set in motion by those looking to
confront and deal with the problem in a constructive manner. Barry Maister,
at St Andrew's College, is investigating a programme for offenders that
rather than see them expelled - thereby simply passing the buck to the next
school on the block - would enter them into a radical drug education programme.

And those working in the mental health sector time and again report the
dangerous and sometimes fatal consequences of mixing marijuana with
medication, or simply with particular mental conditions.

Proponents of legalisation or decriminalisation point to the "waste" of
police manpower and court time prosecuting "harmless" cannabis users. Last
year police spent more than 300,000 hours and $22 million enforcing
cannabis laws. Approximately 8000 people were prosecuted for cannabis
possession. Another 3000 were given warnings, diversion, or handled by the
youth justice system.

The pro-reform lobby has a point. But so do those who warn that any
loosening of the laws governing the drug makes it more acceptable, and
ultimately more available, to the vulnerable young.

The most productive approach to the conundrum is clearly to define the
ultimate aim of the putative reform. If it is to protect this country's
young from the effects of a drug the long-term effects of which are still
uncertain, then relaxation of the current laws should be resisted until we
are in a better position to gauge the likely impact.

Dr David Fergusson, executive director of the Christchurch Medical School's
Health and Development study - based on a group of 1265 15-to-21 year olds
- - says that it is possible to liberalise without relaxing the law. This
would involve making an administrative decision at police level that
first-time users would be diverted and not sent to court. Occasional
recreational smokers would not be criminalised, while serious prohibitions
would remain.

Such an approach is not entirely out of line with police opinion. Assistant
Commissioner of Police Paul Fitzharris says the police are considering a
number of options including "depenalisation" for small possession offences.
This could include a system of warnings and diversion which would not
require law changes.

There is a considerable irony in the baby-boomer generation having to
grapple with the problem. This is, after all, the generation that grew up
in a fug of dope smoke. In the 60s and 70s they thrilled to the music and
rebellion of Easy Rider - "Don't bogart that joint, my friend" - swayed and
played in the mud at Woodstock, laughed hysterically at Cheech and Chong
and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, served hash cookies at dinner
parties ... and mellowed out on the whole trip, man, along the overland
trail to Europe.

Today, exposure to dope is almost an inevitability for young people. For
this they should not be unnecessarily criminalised. But neither is it a
trip on which they should be in any way encouraged to embark until they are
adult enough to understand the consequences.