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Cannabis: Bendigo 'Mirrors Australia' - Study Reveals 300,000 Users a Day Across Nation
Andre Grimaux | Bendigo Advertiser | 05/29/06

About 300,000 Australians use cannabis every day according to a recent study conducted by the Australian National Council on Drugs.

Other statistics included in Cannabis - Your Questions Answered - a free booklet designed to arm the nation with facts about cannabis, show 5.5 million Australians, aged 14 and over, have used cannabis at some time in their life, and 1.8 million of those have done so in the past 12 months.

Victoria has the lowest percentage(9.8 per cent) of people, aged 14 and over, using drugs in the country, while the national average stands at 11.3 per cent.

St Luke's Bendigo youth worker, Wayne Glenn, said cannabis use in the Bendigo region was no different to other areas.

"Bendigo tends to be quite typical, in fact it mirrors the rest of Australia," Mr Glenn said.

"Cannabis use is certainly part of the substance abuse landscape here in Bendigo and the affects vary from person to person."

"Many people do just experiment... but as a drug counselling agency you do deal with people who have come across grief."

Mr Glenn said younger smokers tended to be more experimental users but, as people got older, their dependency increased if they had continued to smoke.

"It's the early 20s age group that can become quite chronic cannabis smokers," Mr Glenn said.

"Different reasons influence these people. Unemployment, peer group pressure, and for many young people, with not a lot on the horizon, the future can be quite bleak."

Other key findings to come out of the study show males as more likely to use cannabis than females and one-in-three Australians has used cannabis in their life.

However, the investigation was unable to find a concrete link between cannabis use and severe mental illnesses.

In key messages about cannabis, the booklet stated that the scientific evidence does not show that cannabis causes severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Although it did reveal that scientific evidence shows a link between regular and heavy cannabis use and some mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.

Bendigo Community Health Services' alcohol and drug support services manager, Kate Harrington-O'Brien, who reported rates of cannabis use in the area similar to those found by St Luke's, was yet to be convinced of the drug's link to mental illnesses.

"About 10 per cent of our clients in treatment would use cannabis on a daily basis, which is in keeping with the rest of Victoria, and approximately a quarter of all clients identify cannabis as their primary substance of concern," Ms Harrington-O'Brien said.

"The majority of our clients are in the 20 to 45-year age group. That is the bulk of our range.

"There is no safe level of cannabis use.

"Over the years people have linked it to psychosis, but that is anecdotal," Ms Harrington-O'Brien said.

"In someone pre-disposed to a mental illness, cannabis may exacerbate that, but alone it is not known to precipitate mental illness."

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dedbr

Nothing wrong with us, no sirrreee. Nothing wrong here boss, nothin' at'alll.

The only ones with the mental illness are the ones who say we who toke are ill from it. Bunch o' idjits......


Next they'll be sayin' I can't get on a jet naked because I'm still settin' the metal detector off..... I look like this.....


Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....


Somewhere in Ded Land......

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Buzzby

I read somewhere that a very high percentage of schizophrenics (60%?) use marijuana. They, of course, are not mentally ill...

I personally know a bipolar person who functions quite well when sober but thinks he's Jesus Christ when he gets high. He's been trying to recruit me as an apostle...

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