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News (Media Awareness Project) - Canada: Drug Abuse Will Rise If Pot Legalized - MD
Title:Canada: Drug Abuse Will Rise If Pot Legalized - MD
Published On:2004-12-08
Source:Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Fetched On:2008-01-17 07:36:39
DRUG ABUSE WILL RISE IF POT LEGALIZED: MD

A top American clinical researcher in the field of drug addiction warned
Tuesday that decriminalizing marijuana could lead to increased abuse of the
drug.

Studies show wider availability of a drug coupled with a relaxed attitude
towards it help predict the level of use and addiction, said Dr. Nora
Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Volkow said surveys indicate that drug use spirals if a drug is considered
safe and benign.

Drug addiction rates can range from 20 to 30 per cent of users.

"The notion of legalizing and making drugs accessible, what it will do is
ultimately increase the number of people that get exposed to the drug,"
Volkow said.

"Some of those people will become addicted that may have not become
addicted had it not been so easily accessible."

The best examples, she said, are alcohol and tobacco, both widely available
and relatively acceptable socially and with the most widespread addiction
rates.

The federal Liberal government is mulling the decriminalization of
possession of small amounts of pot.
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