RADICAL ALTERNATIVES PROPOSED FOR CANNABIS CONTROLS

What should we do to minimise the harm cannabis can cause to the
health and welfare of users and to society at large? The answer,
according to a report by a group of prominent academics and government
advisers, is to change the law to allow the state to prepare and
distribute the drug for recreational use.

This controversial proposal comes from a commission assembled by the
Beckley Foundation, a British charity dedicated to exploring the
science of psychoactive substances. "The damage done by prohibition is
worse than from the substance itself," says Amanda Feilding, the
founder of the Beckley Foundation.

The Beckley commission's ideas will be aired in March at a meeting in
Vienna, Austria, of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The UNCND
will report to a meeting of the UN general assembly later this year
that will set international policy on drug control for the decade to
come.

Marijuana is now the world's most widely used illicit drug. The latest
figures from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicate that in
2006-7 some 166 million people aged 15 or above, or 3.9 per cent of
this age group, used it regularly. Just 1 per cent of the world
population uses other illegal drugs. Cannabis use is particularly
widespread in rich countries. Around 40 per cent of Americans and
one-third of Australians say they have tried it.

The evidence assembled by the Beckley commission left it in no doubt
that cannabis damages the health of heavy users, especially those who
start as teenagers. Such users are at increased risk of suffering from
psychosis, and lung and heart disorders. They are also more likely to
drop out of school early, be involved in traffic accidents, and be
poor parents (see "How bad is it?"). The report also found evidence
that cannabis may act as a "gateway drug", increasing the likelihood
that users will go on to try more damaging drugs such as heroin or
cocaine.

The report details a sharp rise in the potency of marijuana, with
levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the chemical that gets
cannabis users "stoned" - typically double to treble what they were a
decade ago. This, it says, is partly the result of a switch to growing
the plant indoors under continuous lighting.

Potent varieties, sometimes known as "skunk" or "sinsemilla", now make
up 80 per cent of the market in the UK and the Netherlands according
to a report published by the UK home office. These varieties also lack
a compound called cannabidiol found in other cannabis strains, which
when present may help prevent THC triggering psychotic episodes. About
9 per cent of regular cannabis users become dependent - experiencing
withdrawal if they stop using - and suffer ill health as a result of
their drug use, the Beckley authors say.

Despite the undoubted dangers associated with marijuana, the Beckley
report concludes that it is far less harmful to users and to society
in general than other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine, and
far less damaging than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol. There have
been only two documented deaths from marijuana overdose, the report
notes. This contrasts with 200,000 deaths from all causes each year
attributed to other illegal drugs, 2.5 million deaths annually related
to alcohol and 5 million to smoking.

Because possession of cannabis is illegal, its harmful consequences
extend beyond possible damage to immediate health, the Beckley report
points out. In particular, users are at risk of punishment and
acquiring a criminal record. "If you don't think being arrested is a
harm, you are unpersuadable," says criminologist Peter Reuter of the
University of Maryland, a co-author of the report. "In the US, 750,000
people were arrested in 2006, and I think that's a substantial harm."

The report recommends that marijuana should be sold legally, subject
to strict standards to ensure it is not strong enough to cause
psychological problems. This, it says, would allow a strict age bar to
be imposed that would prevent children from buying it, and put the
criminal gangs who peddle it out of business. Cannabis buyers would
not be offered other drugs by the licensed dealers, removing this as a
possible route of progression from cannabis to other drugs.

The framework for drug laws worldwide is now set by the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which has been signed by the
overwhelming majority of nations. Though the convention requires that
all signatories make possession of cannabis illegal, some have
experimented with decriminalisation. The Netherlands, for example, no
longer arrests and punishes people found to have small amounts of
cannabis, though large-scale supply remains illegal and in the hands
of criminal gangs.

The legalisation proposed by the Beckley group is likely to face
strong opposition in Vienna both from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
and from many governments. The fear is that easing up on cannabis will
undermine the whole international effort to combat recreational drug
use. "Cannabis is the most vulnerable point of the whole multilateral
edifice," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UNODC, said
in a speech in March 2008.

The US has set its face firmly against any move towards legalisation,
fearing that this would produce a nation of dope-heads. A document
launched in July 2008 by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) declared marijuana to be "the greatest cause of illegal drug
abuse".

Dave Murray, head of research at the ONDCP, told New Scientist that
strict enforcement of anti-drug laws had helped cut teenage use of
marijuana by 25 per cent between 2001 and 2008. In the absence of
prohibition, it would have been difficult to achieve that," he says.

By contrast, the Beckley authors, among others, argue that punishment
does not reduce cannabis use and itself causes harm. Their view is
backed by a study in 2000 by Simon Lenton of the National Drug
Research Institute in Perth, Western Australia, which compared what
happened to people in Western Australia, where cannabis possession
attracts a criminal conviction and penalty, with those in South
Australia who were given non-punitive infringement notices. He found
that 32 per cent of those "criminalised" reported adverse employment
consequences compared with 2 per cent of "infringers". The
criminalised users were also far more likely to be involved in crime
again, and to suffer housing and relationship problems.

Feilding accepts that there may be few takers in Vienna for her
group's proposals. But the mere fact that an alternative to the strict
prohibition of cannabis will even be considered is a breakthrough in
itself, she says.

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HOW BAD IS IT?

The most damaging of the possible ill effects of
cannabis use is psychosis. "You're 40 per cent more likely to get
psychotic disturbances if you're a user from early life," says Les
Iverson at the University of Oxford, who is a member of the UK
government's Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). He
points out, however, that cannabis is not necessarily the cause in all
these cases.

Dave Murray, head of research at the US Office of National Drug
Control Policy, says that in the US the rise in strength and market
dominance of potent marijuana strains has paralleled a rise in
emergency hospital admissions of people suffering psychoses after
cannabis use.

Another worry with cannabis is that it is a "gateway" drug encouraging
use of more damaging substances. Murray says that cannabis users who
start young are between 9 and 15 times as likely to become heroin or
cocaine users. "We can't say one causes the other, but there's a
strong correlation," he notes.

There is also the danger of traffic accidents: cannabis intoxication
raises a driver's risk of crashing by 1.3 to 3 times. By contrast,
alcohol intoxication raises the accident risk by up to 15 times.

About 9 per cent of regular cannabis users become dependent, compared
with 32 per cent of tobacco smokers, 23 per cent of heroin users, 17
per cent of cocaine users and 15 per cent of those drinking alcohol.
Respiratory and lung cancer risks are also raised for cannabis users,
and they can sustain damage to verbal learning ability, memory and
attention. According to the Beckley report, permanent changes in
receptors of the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum have
been seen in heavy cannabis users. There are also links between early
cannabis use and poor school performance. Whether this is a result of
cannabis itself, or because they share some other common cause, such
as poverty, is not known. Overall, an analysis of 20 drugs by David
Nutt at the University of Bristol, UK, who chairs the ACMD, rated
cannabis as the 11th most harmful drug, well behind alcohol and tobacco.