DRUG FIGURES CARRY A WARNING

RESEARCH findings that place WA at or near the top of national figures for
both illegal drug use and alcohol abuse should be ringing loud alarm bells
for the general community as well as the State Government.

The most disturbing of the findings in the report by the Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare was that in spite of our relatively small
population, WA has 19,300 intravenous drug users - even more than the
numbers for New South Wales and Victoria. This is clearly a disturbing
trend and not just a statistical aberration.

The percentage of West Australians aged 14 or over who admitted smoking
marijuana in the past year was at 17.5 per cent also significantly higher
than the national average of 12.9 per cent, as were the figures for
ecstasy, cocaine, heroin and alcohol.

A possible explanation for the higher-than-average rate of alcohol abuse in
this State may be that the figure is influenced by the traditionally higher
consumption in the north of Australia due to factors such as climate,
isolation and the greater number of Aboriginal communities.

But there are no apparent cultural, ethnic or economic reasons why West
australians should be heavy users of marijuana and the other drugs. It may
be because we are geographically closer than other States to the source of
the drugs, or that the size of WA makes it more difficult to stop
cultivation and illegal imports.

Although there are varying opinions in the community about the harmful
effects of drugs - particularly marijuana - the majority view would
certainly be that less is better, and, in the case of most drugs, none is best.

WA's higher level of drug and alcohol abuse must, of necessity, also be
reflected in other social problems such as crime, road accidents, the rate
of HIV infection and problems within families.

So it is clearly important that we should quickly find out why drug usage
is so high in this State and take steps to reduce it.

The drug usage figures may also cast the WA Government's proposed cannabis
law reforms in a new light and strengthen the case of those who are opposed
to a softer line on the drug for fear that it would encourage even more use.

The proposed changes to the law are based on the belief that marijuana is a
relatively harmless drug and that its use by otherwise law-abiding people
has led to a degree of acceptance in the community.

But that belief has always been vulnerable to shifting attitudes to the
drug based on anecdotal evidence and new research results.

It is very likely that the benign attitude towards the drug could be
changed by recently released results of research in Holland which showed
that smoking marijuana can cause serious psychotic disorders in people with
no history of mental illness.

The decriminalisation of the drug in Holland allowed researchers to study
big numbers of long-term users for the first time, and they concluded that
people who took the drug were more likely to develop mental illness than
those who do not.

Those findings, together with the revelation of the level of usage in WA,
reinforce the case for the Government to proceed cautiously with its reform
proposals.