GOVT DOPE STANCE ATTACKED

Ruling out decriminalising cannabis has been dubbed irrational and
cheap electioneering by experts who advised the Government on the drug.

Parliament's health select committee held an inquiry last year into
the mental health effects of cannabis and recommended that the
Government review the legal status of the drug.

Health, drug and education specialists told the panel that cannabis
use caused no significant harm and that the criminal status of the
drug made the health consequences worse.

But the Government this week ruled against decriminalising the
drug.

The head of the Drug Policy Forum Trust, Dr John Marks, said the
decision was "another illustration of the irrationality of current
drug policy."

Dr Marks had told the committee that cannabis had little effect on
mental illness except for a small group suffering from
schizophrenia.

"This example of our supposedly rational leaders ignoring rational
evidence is a typical example of what happens when you found policy on
ignorance and prejudice, which basically the drug prohibition is
founded on."

He said MPs, blinded by the desire to win votes, had failed to see the
advantage of drug education.

Dr Peter Crampton, of the Wellington School of Medicine, said
prohibitionist policies were not the best way to control cannabis
abuse.

Dr Crampton had told the panel that cannabis use had decreased or
stayed the same in nations or states where it had been
decriminalised.

"It's election year and law and order, and drug issues, are very easy
issues for politicians to pick up on and the approach taken in an
election year will not necessarily be the most well considered." The
Minister of Health, Wyatt Creech, said the Government was not going to
review the law on cannabis because it did not want to send confusing
messages to young people about drug use.

But educationist Helen Shaw, who wrote the Ministry of Education
guidelines on drug education and Also made submissions to the panel,
said the Government was giving the mixed messages.

"They are giving incredibly mixed messages because alcohol and tobacco
cause so much more health damage and yet they are legal and freely
obtainable."