Plainsman1963

300,000 Australians 'Use Cannabis Daily'
The Age | 05/05/2006

One third of Australians have used cannabis and 300,000 people are using it on a daily basis, the national drug council says.

Concerned by misinformation about cannabis and its reputation as a soft drug, the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) has launched a new booklet to educate users and their families.

The council said the booklet, Cannabis - Answers to Your Questions, provides the hard facts about the drug from more than 700 recent studies.

ANCD chief executive Gino Vumbaca said while general use of the drug was in decline, 5.5 million people aged over 14 had tried it at some time, and 1.8 million people had used it in the past 12 months.

But the most serious problem was the 295,200 people who smoked cannabis every day, Mr Vumbaca said.

Of that figure, 10 per cent, or 30,000 people, were dependent on the drug, he said.

"It's not reefer madness revisited or anything. We're not trying to paint this as anyone who goes near cannabis is going to become mentally ill," Mr Vumbaca said.

"We're going solely on what the evidence says and when people talk about links to mental health problems and other problems, they are talking about people who smoke daily, and they are the ones we want to understand that they are putting themselves at risk."

Mr Vumbaca said cannabis users came from a range of socio-economic groups, with people aged between 20-29 years the heaviest users.

The booklet would answer questions for a lot of people who may have grown up with an ill-conceived idea of the drug's effects, he said.

"What we're seeing in long-term studies is that those who use it long-term seem more likely to suffer high levels of anxiety, depression and mental illness," Mr Vumbaca said.

Garth Popple, executive director of the Sydney drug rehabilitation centre We Help Ourselves, said 20 per cent of people at the centre were there as a result of cannabis dependence.

Ten years ago, there wouldn't have been a single person in rehabilitation because of the drug, he said.

"People are now smoking hydroponics, the heads of the plant, which are stronger than the leaf which they smoked in the 1960s," Mr Popple said.

"People are developing dependencies quicker because there is more in their system."

The booklet is available through the ANCD and can be downloaded from their website.

nerphroll

http://www.ancd.org.au/publications/..._questions.pdf

Here's a link to the document. PDF, 1.6MB. I'll have to check it out. They reference hundreds of studies. Though this is a government publication. No bias here, no sir...

Merry-juana

Does that mean that 1/3rd of the Australian population is mentally ill? Well that explains there weird accents.

Researcher

I wonder if the membership's opinio/perception of cannabis use is the same as cited in this study? Do you'all here feel "more anxiety, more depression, etc..." since you're mostly chronic (no pun intended) users?

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Researcher

Hey, it's just a daym plant!

pkster8235

I wonder how they could even begin to project how many marijuana smokers there are in Australia.. It's obviously a private matter for most people.