HEALTH RISKS CLOUD CANNABIS DEBATE

THERE are a lot of myths and misconceptions about cannabis but there also
are a few facts - including that Australians are world leaders in its use.

And people who start using cannabis as teenagers are more at risk of the
dangers it has than those who start later in life.

While debate rages in WA about whether legislation before the Parliament
will increase the availability of the drug, medical experts around the world
say that cannabis use already is a growing problem.

It also is worth noting that cannabis use in WA has increased steadily
without any change to the laws governing it.

Professor of adolescent health at Murdoch Children's Research Institute in
Melbourne, George Patton, has contributed to the growing body of
international research on the effects of cannabis on teenagers.

"It has to be a concern for policy makers that cannabis use has become so
prevalent in the community but in young people in particular," Professor
Patton said.

Use of the drug increased dramatically during the 1990s but there were signs
that it was beginning to plateau.

Professor Patton said there was no evidence that occasional use of the drug
was harmful. But its use on a daily basis or more than once a week was
linked to a range of health problems.

The evidence was increasingly clear that regular cannabis use caused
psychotic illnesses, such as schizophrenia.

Professor Patton said his research revealed that regular use of cannabis
increased the risk of developing depression.

The study of 1601 students aged 14 to 15 found that teenagers who used
cannabis weekly or more frequently were twice as likely to develop
depression and anxiety at a later stage.

He said young women appeared to be more at risk than men, though it was not
known why.

Professor Patton said policy makers around the world were grappling with
ways to reduce use of cannabis among teenagers and to reduce the amount
smoked by regular users.

He said there had to be much better education about cannabis to change the
perception that it was a soft, innocuous drug.

He did not believe that decriminalising or legalising the drug would hamper
efforts to get out an accurate message about cannabis and its associated
harm.

He believed legalising cannabis would allow much stricter controls to be
introduced in terms of how the drug is sold and to whom.

National Drug Research Institute senior research fellow Simon Lenton said
Australia relied on criminal law to deter young people from drugs but that
had failed.

"We need to be doing much more to dissuade young people from using it and
using it on a regular basis," he said.

Mr Lenton said removing criminal penalties was a step in the right direction
but parents also had to be made more aware so that supervision of children
was improved and more education about the drug was needed.

Before he lost the health portfolio on Friday, former health minister Bob
Kucera said the Government was about to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars educating the community about the harms of cannabis use and part of
that campaign would focus on teenagers.

Drug and Alcohol Office director of practice development Steve Allsop said a
multi-faceted approach was being taken in relation to teenage drug use with
resources being developed for parents and new programs being introduced into
schools.

But despite WA's drug summit recommending almost two years ago that drug
education in schools be made compulsory, that is not going to happen.

School drug education program manager Richard Crane said the Curriculum
Council did not stipulate what must be taught in schools but instead set
goals that must be achieved. It was up to school principals to ensure they
were reached.

He said the program produced drug education materials, designed for
kindergarten through to Year 12, trained teachers and assisted with the
development of school drug policies.

About 95 per cent of public, private and independent schools in WA had used
the education materials, about 60 per cent had had teachers trained in drug
education and about 200 schools had drug policies, Mr Crane said.

Dr Allsop said all the present research showed that children at risk of
abusing cannabis had problems relating to there parents and at school.
Programs had been implemented to detect those at-risk children and to
intervene at an early stage.