Call to teach cannabis dangers

This article is a complete joke. As soon as I read cannabis "COULD" account for up to 10 per cent of cases of psychosis, I began to take this article in a humorous manner. The so called high potency cannabis theory is also a joke as well. Hash, which is compressed THC has existed for thousands of years and is more powerful than the actual plant, even if it is high grade. I wonder how much good old legal alcohol and baccy costs the government, and how many die as a result from it's use. But that's probably irrelevant to the government, as they make profit off it.

When I smoke a joint, I want to eat food and watch tv. When I drink, I want to beat my family up and pillage underage girls.

Which one sounds safer?

Take everything you hear with a grain on salt, as the saying goes. I'm sure studies were done, but the vital wording of this article appears extremely biased.

Your ignorance and idiocy has left me speechless.

If you made it legal then you could put limits on the amount of THC, because all vendors would be registered and all marijuana could be tested. When it's illegal, why would anybody go out of their way to sell safe marijuana?

Alcohol is implicated in the deaths of around 140 New Zealanders every year.

Tobacco is implicated in the deaths of around 4800 New Zealanders every year.

Marijuana is implicated in the deaths of around 1 New Zealander every year.

Teaching the the so called dangers of cannabis to primary school children is like saying, 'do not think about a black cat'. The first thing that pops into your head....is the image of a black cat.

Cannabis laws suck. they are for old people with old ideas. its 2008 and we should be able to relax with a marley at home, its better than dru=inking with the scum at the yuck smelly pub. and fact is i have smoked bags and bags of dope and its all been sgunky as gear and havent overdosed, i keep trying but it just cant happen. the dominion should be shamed for publishing this

I agree with Matt Mike and DJ. I was horrified that cannabis could be blamed for these numbers of admissions, and would be very interested to read the symptoms of these people who were admitted with "cannabis poisoning, harmful use, dependence and acute intoxication" and also see blood test results proving that cannabis was the ONLY thing they had inhaled. My bet is most of these "cannabis admissions" had some other drug they werent mentioning! (P, K, Alcohol, Nitris is popular with those teens too!)

your source is apparently from New Cannabis: The Cornerstone of Illicit Drug Harm in NewZealand? I cannot find such an organisation/news organisation/political group any search on Google just refers back to the story, what kind of a source do you call that? The story also beats Reefeer madness hands down for total fear mongering nonsense, I especially liked the bit about Marijuana poisoning. It is little wonder that mainstreem media is dieing world wide when fables like this are on the front page

This entire report is complete and utter rubbish and I'm frankly surprised a normally high quality publication like "STUFF.CO.NZ" has subscribed to it.

Increasing the amount of 'drug education' under prohibition is only going to ADD to the fact New Zealand lags behind only the US in the amounts of its citizens who admit to using cannabis, with 38% and 44% respectively according to the WHO.

Meanwhile in Holland, where cannabis is legally available on every street corner, and has been for over 30 years, the percentage of population who admit to using cannabis is way lower, at only 19% and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

In the UK, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs actually recommended cannabis remain a class C substance in fitting with the risks associated with other, class C drugs, but the ruling Labour government decided to upgrade cannabis use anyway, and against the advice of the experts, bringing with it the risk of a 5 year jail term for simple possession, (knife crime brings with it a risk of a 4 year sentence), and 14 years for trafficking, (rapists are generally released in under 5 years).

During the same period the United States held a ballot in Michigan, and won it convicingly, making Michingan the 13th US state to implement a medical cannabis program, and New Jersey is about to attempt to become the 14th state.

What this means in real terms is under the say-so of a doctor, over 25% of the United States, (a country where 1 in 99 of its citizens is in prison on a marijuana charge), may now use marijuana legally.

Its safe to assume in the most litigious society in the world if there were any risk AT ALL, of cannabis treatment for cancer, glaucoma, Irritable Bowel Syndrom causing health issues as a result of the treatment it would never have been legalised.

What we need to do is draw the attentions of our respective legislators to this data, which disproves out of hand, all of the scare mongering and sensationalistic reporting as is displayed in the news report above.

Staying with the facts, and with almost half the population of the US admitting using cannabis, shouldn't the US be in the grip of a cannabis psychosis epidemic? Yes it should but the truth is, its not.

Psychosis rates in the US currently run at around 1% of the population, as it does in the UK, and elsewhere in the world.

Exposing ever younger children to cannabis serves merely to increase the amounts of our young people who decide to experiment with cannabis. This tack doesn't work nor has it ever.

In the UK we have politicians who admitted they used cannabis as students. In the US Barack Obama admitted he did too, and he's not done so bad for himself has he?

Whilst the Cannabis Lobby agrees cannabis is not an entirely safe, benign drug which should be available for everyone, we also believe sending millions of people to prison for consuming a drug which is only illegal at the behest of one or two big industries, (alcohol, oil, petroleum) is inhumane.

Whilst a great many medications work perfectly well for MS, Cancer etc, cannabis also works for some, so threatening to send MS sufferers (eg) to prison for growing their own cannabis is barbaric.

During a time of huge global economic crisis, spending billions of pounds/dollars/euros on further anti-cannabis policing, when we can prove at every turn it actually has no effect, is bad government and only you can change this, so use your votes wisely.

Bill Stone http://forum.cannabislobby.org

Reading the commments, one can surmise that most people are not falling for the "reefer madness" propaganda anymore. The editors should keep this in mind. Statistics can be manipulated to say anything. Statistically speaking,one can easily demonstrate that the effects prohibition causes more harm than the drugs themselves. DARE is almost history in the USA,and the sooner, the better.