Pubdate: Wed, 23 Apr 2003
Source: West Australian (Australia)
Copyright: 2003 West Australian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thewest.com.au
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495
Author: M.A. Landgren

CANNABIS JOKE

FOR many years cannabis has been treated and thought of as a joke. Today, 
nobody should be laughing. There now is much evidence of the harm caused by 
this mind-altering drug.

There are concerns about the Government's proposal to relax laws for the 
possession and cultivation of cannabis. Cannabis users and the mental 
health system go together. Cannabis users are in the psychiatric hospitals, 
particularly our youth. This is no myth.

Research shows that those who drink alcohol to become intoxicated are more 
prone to alcoholism than those who drink but avoid intoxication. Drugs such 
as cannabis are used solely for their intoxicant affect. Softening drug 
laws will result in more people, particularly the young, experimenting with 
cannabis, more experimenters becoming regular users and more regular users 
becoming addicts.

There is a rapidly increasing number of parents whose lives have been 
seriously disrupted by their children's use of cannabis. Their kids become 
abusive, violent and foul-mouthed antisocial individuals. Such kids do not 
respect rules, laws or personal property.

They not only become self-destructive but intent on destroying everything 
around them, including the people who most care about them. It isn't the 
adolescent who is bad but the drug they use.

Why should parents have to witness the liberalisation of the laws and allow 
cannabis to grow in their backyards? Two plants and a fine. This is truly 
the biggest joke.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens