YOUNG PUFF ON POT AT THEIR PERIL

CANNABIS use can speed up the appearance of psychotic illness, a
ground-breaking Australian study has found.

Dr Matthew Large, a staff specialist in mental health from the
University of New South Wales and the Prince of Wales Hospital, said
the risks were especially high for younger people, whose brains were
still developing.

"What our research has found is that ... cannabis smoking ... brings
schizophrenia on early by an average of 2.7 years," he said.

For young people who smoke cannabis regularly, instead of having
about a one per cent chance of developing schizophrenia during their
lifetime, they would end up with something like a five per cent
chance of developing schizophrenia, Dr Large said.

His research, which pulled together data on 20,000 patients and drew
on more than 80 international studies, is published in the journal,
Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study has again prompted drug experts to call for regulation, not
prohibition, of marijuana.

With about 33 per cent of the Australian population and 18 per cent
of secondary school students using the drug, in a few years there
would be more Australians smoking cannabis than smoking tobacco, said
Dr Alex Wodak, director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at Sydney's
St Vincent's Hospital and head of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation.

"Having a black market of that size is not good for anybody," he said.

"By taxing and regulating the drug we would start to have some
influence over the way people use cannabis.

"An unregulated cannabis market is about profits, not ethics. We have
a responsibility to reduce the harm associated with cannabis use."

Dr Wodak added that taxing and regulating cannabis could be carried
out similar to the way the alcohol and tobacco industries are regulated.

"We could have warning labels on packets, we could have proof-of-age
requirements, we could also have help-seeking information for people
who want to try to cut down or stop."

He recently told Northern Star reporter Jennie Dell that he believed
the time was right for a trial of a hash coffee shop in the community
of Nimbin.

David Halliwell, a Fellow of the Chapter of Addictive Medicine Unit
at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and a long-term
Northern Rivers resident, said: "At the moment the cannabis industry
is just kept in the dark and prohibited.

"The laws have failed. We have anillegal market run by criminals.
Regulating supply would be a much better way (of controlling cannabis use)."

However, Dr Halliwell said moreresearch was needed to establish
whether cannabis caused psychosis or was simply linked to it.

Alan Salt, vice-president of The Hemp Embassy in Nimbin, said: "Even
if one accepted the '2.7 years earlier for schizophrenia in those
susceptible'argument, what percentage of the population are
susceptible? Where are there any figures that suggest an epidemic or
any increase at all in theincidence of schizophrenia?

"I am sceptical of research that panders to popular prejudice or
political prejudice," he said.

Michael Balderstone, also of The Hemp Embassy, added: "I think
psychosis is probably related to prohibition.

"At the moment, cannabis is expensive. You can lose your job if you
are found with it and there's quite a bit of fear and paranoia that
goes with all of that."

Dr Large said a number of hypotheses had been proposed to explain
theassociation between cannabis use and schizophrenia.

These include that cannabis use is a causal factor for schizophrenia,
that cannabis use precipitates psychosis in vulnerable people, that
cannabis use exacerbates symptoms of schizophrenia, and that people
with schizophrenia are more likely to use cannabis.

"This study lends weight to the view that cannabis use precipitates
schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, perhaps by an
interaction betweengenetic and environmental factors," he said.

A spokesperson for the Minister for Police Michael Daley said the
NSWGovernment had no plans to change the drug policy.