NOT ALL MARIJUANA USERS SHOULD BE TREATED THE SAME WAY, STUDY
SAYS

A public health drive aimed at educating heavy marijuana users most
likely to run into problems with the drug should replace the current
one-size-fits-all criminalization of all users, says a new Canadian
study.

"We're arguing for a differentiated approach that recognizes that some
people, but only some, a minority, have problems from their cannabis
use and we understand now a lot better what their characteristics and
determinants are while the large proportion of users are fairly
problem free," said Simon Fraser University Health Sciences professor
Benedikt Fischer, who directed the study.

He was hesitant to call the study an argument for marijuana
legalization, however, saying that was not what he and his researchers
from the Universite de Montreal and Toronto's Centre for Addictions
and Mental Health set out to do.

"You could still do public health education and criminalize the hell
out of people. You could theoretically do that, but it just makes no
sense because they are competing paradigms," Fischer said.

Among the interventions suggested in the study are health-oriented
peer groups for school-age children, monitoring programs to identify
young, frequent users and selective laws that target marijuana use
only in cases --such as driving under the influence -- where it is
proven to affect public health.

The study divided 1,303 Canadian cannabis users into four categories
based on their frequency of use, age of first use and reason for use
- -- social or medical.

It determined that the majority use the drug infrequently and appear
to experience no major health risks as a result.

Those who began using later in life and use infrequently have the
least risk of negative impacts on their health, while those who began
using before age 16 and continue to use daily or near-daily have the
highest health risks.

These risks include using other illicit drugs, driving while
intoxicated, substance abuse problems and negative effects on their
physical and mental health.

"There is therefore a pressing need to target interventions at this
subpopulation of users," Fischer noted in his report.

Fischer said that Canada's current model of using police as educators
about the risks of cannabis use "makes absolutely no sense."

Police are not public health officials and not very knowledgeable in
matters of public health or substance use, he said, " just the way we
wouldn't use nurses or orderlies to prosecute criminals. That's just
not the professional activity these people are equipped and trained
for."

Tom Stamatakis, president of the B.C. Police Association and a 22-year
veteran with the Vancouver police department, agreed police shouldn't
be the only educators on the realities of marijuana use, but said they
should be one voice of many in the discussion.

"We're in the trenches with these people every day, 24/7," he said,
noting that he hadn't read the study.

"We have a perspective to offer, particularly when you have academics
and researchers coming at it from this academic perspective making
some pretty broad statements in terms of where this should go without
considering all the implications."

The findings of the study, published in the International Journal of
Methods in Psychiatric Research, are now being used by Fischer and his
group of researchers to try to determine effective short-term health
interventions for young and frequent marijuana users.