Pubdate: Wed, 10 Jul 2013
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
Copyright: 2013 Herald and Weekly Times
Contact: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/letter
Website: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/187
Author: Aleks Devic

BONGS NOT BOOZE

Legalise Marijuana to Cut Alcohol Dangers, Urges Professor

THE head of Australia's leading alcohol research body has called for 
marijuana to be legalised to reduce the harm of drinking.

Robin Room, director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, says 
marijuana should be legalised under strict controls because the 
social harm associated with it was significantly less than from drinking.

"It makes sense to legalise marijuana in a controlled market," he 
told the Herald

Sun yesterday. "We are in a situation where we need to look ahead. I 
think we need to have the discussion and it makes a lot of sense in 
terms of, among others, cutting down government costs to have a 
fairly highly controlled legal (cannabis) market and, while we are at 
it, tighten up the legal market of alcohol in the same way we 
tightened up the market of tobacco."

Prof Room, a leading academic at Melbourne University, is funded by 
the Department of Human Services.

In an ideal world, Prof Room said teens would not smoke marijuana or 
drink alcohol to excess.

But if an 18-year-old was going to use substances, he said they would 
likely land themselves in less trouble after using cannabis rather 
than bingeing on alcohol.

Teens were "better off" on a mixture of booze and marijuana rather 
than just pure alcohol in social settings, he added. Alcohol was more 
dangerous than cannabis because it had a closer association with 
aggression and violence, loss of co-ordination and impacts on work 
and family life, he said.

"Cannabis is not without harm but it's substantially less than 
alcohol and tobacco in terms of social harm," he said.

"If you are adding the cannabis to an equal amount of alcohol, then 
in some ways you'd be probably less likely to be aggressive but it's 
a bad idea to add it on if you want to drive a car."

Prof Room said if marijuana were legalised, among the measures to 
control the use should be "state sellers" and "state stores" where 
sales were regulated. I t should not be sold in supermarkets nor 
advertised on TV or at sporting matches.

While Prof Room acknowledged many people would be "surprised" and 
even "bothered" by his stance, the statistics backed him up.

The controversial proposal comes as Melbourne continues to battle 
booze-fuelled violence, and alcohol-related hospital admissions soar 
for men and women.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom