CHRISTCHURCH STUDY PROVES CANNABIS GATEWAY

Sir - David Houston (April 6) was rather too quick to rubbish Allan Grant.

The world renowned Christchurch Health and Development Study has been
examining the behaviour of a cohort of over 1200 children since their birth
in 1977.

By the time they reached 21, those who had smoked cannabis 50 times or more
were a staggering 62 times more likely to use harder drugs.

The initial findings had this likelihood at an even higher figure of 143
times. The researchers eliminated factors such as family predisposition to
addiction and dysfunctional environments that may have triggered harder drug
use, isolating the statistical likelihood that was solely as a result of the
cannabis use.

The size of this study group and the respect with which this study is held
globally, makes such findings very difficult to dismiss. Clearly those who
use cannabis this regularly are at significantly higher risk to harder drug
use.

JEFF McINTYRE