Pubdate: Mon, 14 Nov 2005
Source: Australian, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005sThe Australian
Contact: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/aus_letters.htm
Website: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/35
Author: Carmel Egan

OLD AND OFF THEIR FACES

The Number Of People Still Using Marijuana In Their 30s And 40s Is 
Escalating And Their Children Are Following Suit, Writes Carmel Egan

JOY expected one of her children to experiment with cannabis. It was 
almost inevitable, living on Sydney's northern beaches where the drug 
culture is as entrenched as the pursuit of surf and sun.

She anticipated her child would be induced by a friend to take that 
first toke, just as she was as a schoolgirl in the 1970s.

"Those were the days of Buddha sticks," Joy says. "I can't even 
remember how we used them." Two of Joy's four children became regular 
cannabis users between the ages of 15 and 17. Both are now in their 
20s and although one is an occasional user, Joy is confident his 
dalliance will have no long-term effect. But the 46-year-old, 
middle-class mum didn't tell her children of her own teenage 
experiences until years later. "It just hadn't come up in 
conversation," she says.

Lana Coleman plans a different approach. She will wait for her 
10-year-old daughter to ask but plans to tell all. In anticipation of 
that day Coleman, also from Sydney's northern beaches, enrolled in a 
Parents Prepared course at the Manly Drug Education Centre. "Kids are 
going to experiment, you need to give them information," she says.

Coleman's first puff was with a boyfriend in the company of a group 
of older children when she was 13. She sees it now as a fairly 
typical teenage adventure, along with sneaking into pubs for an 
underage drink. It caused her no harm and her interest faded.

I have a small percentage of friends who are still using it," says 
Coleman, soon to turn 40. "Some are still hooked."

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2004 (a federal 
Government initiative) identified a significant change in marijuana 
use among 30 and 40-year-olds. Rather than dropping off dramatically 
as it had in the past, the number of people still using marijuana in 
their 30s and 40s is escalating.

"I come from a generation at university in the '70s where everybody 
smoked," says David Murray, chief executive officer of Melbourne's 
Young People's Substance Abuse Service. "A lot of my friends would 
have smoked well into their 40s, just as they might have a glass of 
red at dinner. In baby boomers there is a cultural association with 
cannabis and an attitude that [smoking it] is a harmless event."

The household survey found 15.9 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds and 
8.7 per cent of 40 to 49-year-olds had used the illicit drug in the 
past 12 months.

The concern is that a growing number of Australian adults continue to 
use cannabis at an age when they are likely to be parents of teenagers.

"The belief is that [parental use] is going to have an impact on what 
their children do," says Paul Dillon of the National Drug and Alcohol 
Research Centre. "I often get parents coming up saying they use 
occasionally. They don't promote it, but if they had to choose they 
would prefer their children use cannabis to amphetamines, which they 
don't understand. The sad part for me is that what we are seeing with 
the young is very different patterns of cannabis use from their 
parents. They are smoking more, smoking more often, smoking stronger 
parts of the plants and they are doing it in a riskier way with bongs 
instead of joints."

Cannabis is the most commonly reported illicit drug used by 12 to 
19-year-olds, with 13.5 per cent having used it in the past 12 
months, according to the household study.

Another 2004 national report for the federal Government analysed data 
collected from 23,000 secondary students at 363 schools. It found 25 
per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds had used cannabis at least once in 
their lives. Thirty-nine per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds had tried it.

A family history of drug-taking is known to have a significant 
influence on juvenile offenders' harmful alcohol, cannabis, heroin or 
amphetamine habits, although there are usually a multiplicity of other causes.

"Seven out of 10 kids are introduced to drugs by somebody they know. 
If it is their parents then you are taking away some of the 
prohibitions: you expect mum and dad to say no to you," says Moses 
Abbatangelo, acting CEO of Odyssey Institute of Studies. "The earlier 
the onset of drug use the more likely there will be problems. 
Naturally it flows that if mum and day say OK then maybe everybody 
else is wrong."

It is the method, quantity and frequency that is most alarming in the 
young, particularly as evidence mounts of the impact of heavy use on 
still-developing brains.

Many professionals believe evidence is firming of an association 
between marijuana use and schizophrenia or anxiety and depression in 
people with a predisposition -- although some dispute a causal link.

The release last month of the landmark report into Australia's 
deteriorating state of mental health provision, Not for Service, 
highlighted the issue when co-author Ian Hickie warned drug-using 
parents of a false sense of security about children and cannabis.

"Cannabis would be the best example of something that's assumed by 
parents and teenagers themselves to be not particularly harmful," 
Hickie says. "It's often portrayed as similar to alcohol.

"If parents continue to smoke, their kids smoke. If parents are 
significant users of alcohol or other drugs, their kids use at much 
higher rates."

Former premier of Victoria and now chairman of Beyond Blue Jeff 
Kennett once advocated decriminalisation of marijuana before backing 
away from it. "We haven't as a community given cannabis smoking -- or 
being opposed to cannabis smoking -- a high enough priority," Kennett 
says in response to the Not For Service report. "It has almost been a 
leisure drug. It's almost been a hip thing to do so no one has given 
it a priority above the norm.

"Because we are all different it could change significantly the level 
of psychosis within an individual and that could lead to depression."

Yet, the cannabis debate remains polarised. On one side are the 
anti-drugs campaigners and conservative politicians such as federal 
parliamentary secretary for health Chris Pyne, who exhorts state 
governments to toughen up their policing of cannabis.

On the other side health are professionals and researchers such as 
John Toumbourou, of the Centre for Adolescent Health, at the 
University of Melbourne, who believes Australia's open attitude to 
cannabis use is paying dividends. Toumbourou argues the Australian 
approach to education and counselling ahead of punishment of 
first-time offenders has been successful in slowing the growth in 
drug use among young people.

Illicit drug use is less in Australia compared with the US. While the 
household survey found 13.5 per cent of 15 to 17-year-old Australians 
used cannabis in the past 12 months, the figure is 23 per cent in the 
US. "The important point is a tolerant attitude [of parents to drugs] 
is a two-edged sword," Toumbourou says. "A parental history of drug 
use is reported more frequently in our studies, but in the US a more 
hardline view results in a disaffection among drug users. The 
tolerant community and family attitude to cannabis is one of the 
differences between us and the US. The great strength is that it 
allows open debate and discussion.

"We are less likely to suspend children from school in Australia for 
cannabis use or other problems. In the US they are thrown out and 
that probably creates an alien subculture. And there has been a move 
in the past five years of clever policing using diversion. So in the 
first instance they may go in for counselling.

"But many teenagers we know are actually using the substance daily on 
an ongoing basis and may continue that for some years and that's the 
pattern of use which appears to be much more problematic in terms of 
depression and suicide. I agree with Chris Pyne that research is 
firming that cannabis is contributing to mental health but if we go 
in the direction of using the law to crack down we will create a 
greater problem."

Toumbourou's advice to a parent who has used cannabis in the past is 
to read the research, be frank and upfront and open with your 
children. Discuss the risks and the potential for health risks -- it 
is the reason Australians have reduced their cigarette smoking from 
75 per cent of the post-World War II population to 17 per cent today.

It would not be hypocritical of parents to say they were unaware of 
the risks a generation ago and that theirs was uninformed behaviour. 
"But you are playing russian roulette if you are a parent who 
encourages cannabis use," he says. "If you have an addiction as your 
children enter adolescence it is time to consider doing something about it."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman