Pubdate: Wed, 09 Feb 2011
Source: Northern Star (Australia)
Copyright: 2011 APN News & Media Ltd
Contact: http://www.northernstar.com.au/contact/feedback/
Website: http://www.northernstar.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5149
Author: Helen Hawkes
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?252 (Cannabis - Psychosis)

YOUNG PUFF ON POT AT THEIR PERIL

CANNABIS use can speed up the appearance of psychotic illness, a 
ground-breaking Australian study has found.

Dr Matthew Large, a staff specialist in mental health from the 
University of New South Wales and the Prince of Wales Hospital, said 
the risks were especially high for younger people, whose brains were 
still developing.

"What our research has found is that ... cannabis smoking ... brings 
schizophrenia on early by an average of 2.7 years," he said.

For young people who smoke cannabis regularly, instead of having 
about a one per cent chance of developing schizophrenia during their 
lifetime, they would end up with something like a five per cent 
chance of developing schizophrenia, Dr Large said.

His research, which pulled together data on 20,000 patients and drew 
on more than 80 international studies, is published in the journal, 
Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study has again prompted drug experts to call for regulation, not 
prohibition, of marijuana.

With about 33 per cent of the Australian population and 18 per cent 
of secondary school students using the drug, in a few years there 
would be more Australians smoking cannabis than smoking tobacco, said 
Dr Alex Wodak, director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at Sydney's 
St Vincent's Hospital and head of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation.

"Having a black market of that size is not good for anybody," he said.

"By taxing and regulating the drug we would start to have some 
influence over the way people use cannabis.

"An unregulated cannabis market is about profits, not ethics. We have 
a responsibility to reduce the harm associated with cannabis use."

Dr Wodak added that taxing and regulating cannabis could be carried 
out similar to the way the alcohol and tobacco industries are regulated.

"We could have warning labels on packets, we could have proof-of-age 
requirements, we could also have help-seeking information for people 
who want to try to cut down or stop."

He recently told Northern Star reporter Jennie Dell that he believed 
the time was right for a trial of a hash coffee shop in the community 
of Nimbin.

David Halliwell, a Fellow of the Chapter of Addictive Medicine Unit 
at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and a long-term 
Northern Rivers resident, said: "At the moment the cannabis industry 
is just kept in the dark and prohibited.

"The laws have failed. We have anillegal market run by criminals. 
Regulating supply would be a much better way (of controlling cannabis use)."

However, Dr Halliwell said moreresearch was needed to establish 
whether cannabis caused psychosis or was simply linked to it.

Alan Salt, vice-president of The Hemp Embassy in Nimbin, said: "Even 
if one accepted the '2.7 years earlier for schizophrenia in those 
susceptible'argument, what percentage of the population are 
susceptible? Where are there any figures that suggest an epidemic or 
any increase at all in theincidence of schizophrenia?

"I am sceptical of research that panders to popular prejudice or 
political prejudice," he said.

Michael Balderstone, also of The Hemp Embassy, added: "I think 
psychosis is probably related to prohibition.

"At the moment, cannabis is expensive. You can lose your job if you 
are found with it and there's quite a bit of fear and paranoia that 
goes with all of that."

Dr Large said a number of hypotheses had been proposed to explain 
theassociation between cannabis use and schizophrenia.

These include that cannabis use is a causal factor for schizophrenia, 
that cannabis use precipitates psychosis in vulnerable people, that 
cannabis use exacerbates symptoms of schizophrenia, and that people 
with schizophrenia are more likely to use cannabis.

"This study lends weight to the view that cannabis use precipitates 
schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, perhaps by an 
interaction betweengenetic and environmental factors," he said.

A spokesperson for the Minister for Police Michael Daley said the 
NSWGovernment had no plans to change the drug policy.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom