HUFF AND PUFF OVER CANNABIS

The Problem With Cannabis Is, We'Re Smoking It At A Much Earlier Age

IT BEGAN, claim researchers, 15 years ago in the United States, a kind
of revival of the classic 1950s anti-marijuana propaganda
characterised by the Reefer Madness films.

Cannabis, cried American anti-drugs crusaders, could no longer be
regarded as a "soft drug", was becoming more potent and was being
implicated in many serious illnesses from cancer to
schizophrenia.

In Australia, even more alarming rumours - that cannabis had become up
to 30 times more powerful than in recent decades - gained currency
later, in the early 1990s, reaching a crescendo in the recent lectures
and speeches of the anti-drug campaigners, John Anderson, and
pharmacologist John Malouf.

During the recent NSW Drug Summit, the Premier, Bob Carr, and the
Opposition Leader, Kerry Chikarovski, expressed fears that marijuana
was now stronger. Chikarovski admitted she had tried cannabis in her
university days but had heard it was now "30 times stronger than the
stuff my generation smoked".

This afternoon, audiences at a Sydney lecture to launch a campaign
against drug law reform in NSW will undoubtedly hear equally
frightening suggestions.

But a new report prepared by the National Drug and Alcohol Research
Centre of the University of NSW (NDARC) says there is no evidence that
the potency of cannabis has increased.

Quarterly monitoring by the US, the only country that has regularly
measured the content of THC (tetrahydro-cannabinol, the major
psychoactive substance in cannabis) over several decades, found no
such thing, leading researchers to conclude that in Australia and New
Zealand it is likely that strength may have increased at most perhaps
two to three times over the past few decades, mirroring American
results between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s.

The results are important in the political climate because they are
likely to shape the NSW Government's response to the recommendations
of the Drug Summit.

One major proposal is the introduction of a police caution system
which, while not decriminalising the personal use of cannabis, would
allow first-time users to escape criminal sanctions.

Carr has reiterated concerns about potency which led the
Attorney-General, Jeff Shaw, last month to call for submissions from
experts on cannabis strength. These submissions, led by the NDARC
report, are likely to form the basis of the Government's decision as
it ponders the question of relaxing drug laws.

The fact is, says NDARC's director, Professor Wayne Hall, that potency
is not the biggest worry with cannabis use. Rather, it is the newest
patterns of use - youth trying the drug at younger ages than ever
before - which should become the focus of public health policies.

"These claims have been made by people perhaps in good faith but they
simply distract attention from the bigger issue and that is changing
patterns of use." he says.

"Survey data indicates that over the past several decades young
Australians have initiated cannabis use at an earlier age than in the
1970s ... [this] makes these users more likely to become daily or
nearly daily cannabis users and more likely to become dependent on the
drug."

Hall suggests that if there have been small increases in potency,
these may be an unintended consequence of Australian laws focusing on
seizure of large-scale plantations of cannabis, creating new
incentives for illicit suppliers to grow small numbers of plants with
higher THC contents.

One policy shift is to look at Dutch laws which impose tougher
penalties for growing and supplying higher THC content cannabis, he
says.