ILLICIT DRUG USE

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:46): I would just like to make a brief contribution today on an issue we sometimes hear of in the community. I understand why people would say this; in one sense, there is an element of correctness to it, that is, that alcohol in particular (but I think tobacco as well) causes more harm in the community than illicit drugs. In once sense, that is correct, because when you look at it on a per population basis, alcohol is something that is used by many, many more people in our community than use what are currently illicit drugs.

So, from that strict interpretation, it is correct, but I guess the real issue we should be focused on is the relative harm that these drugs do, that is, the harm that is caused relative to the number of people who use those drugs. I would like to put on the record in the brief time I have—and perhaps continue this discussion during other matters of interest in the future—some data which I think is absolutely compelling, in terms of making it clear to us as a society that there are in fact very real risks associated with illicit drug use.

Whilst alcohol and other currently legal drugs also have harms associated with them, I think that when we properly compare—that is, apples with apples—then currently illicit drugs, in most cases, lose hands down. According to one university study in the US:

...A given dose of cocaine or crack is far more dangerous than a drink of alcohol. Alcohol has an addiction rate of 10 percent, whereas cocaine has an addiction rate as high as 75 percent.

And when cocaine is combined with marijuana, it can be deadly. According to a study in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behaviour, an increase in heart rate due to cocaine was markedly enhanced if preceded by smoking marijuana. The dual use creates a greater risk of overdose and more severe cardiovascular effects from the cocaine. An article in Schizophrenia Research found that up to 60 percent of schizophrenic patients used non-prescription psychoactive drugs.

By itself, marijuana can be a dangerous drug as well. A joint of marijuana is far more carcinogenic than a cigarette. Microbiologist Tom Klein of the University of South Florida reports, 'We've tried working with [marijuana smoke], and it's so toxic, you just get it near the immune system and it [the immune system] dies.' Klein found that THC [tetrahydrocannabinol—the active ingredient in marijuana] suppresses some immune system responses and enhances others.

A study of in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that marijuana smoke is often contaminated by the fungus, Aspergillus. Another study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that cases of allergic sinus infection with the same fungus came from recreational use of contaminated marijuana.

A study in Drug and Alcohol Dependence found that cannabis users react very slowly in performing motor tasks and suffer disability in personal, social and vocational areas in many cases. They also indicate a higher score for neurotic and psychotic behaviour. A study in the American Review of Respiratory Disease found that marijuana smoke is as irritating as tobacco smoke to many people and, when used together, marijuana and tobacco caused the small oxygen exchanging parts of the lung to shed cells that first become inflamed.

A 1995 study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that illicit drugs such as marijuana and cocaine can interfere with male sperm production. A study in the journal Cancer found that the children of women who smoke marijuana are in fact 11 times more likely to contract leukaemia. Mothers who smoke marijuana also contribute to low birth weight and developmental problems for their children and increase the risk of abnormalities, similar to those caused by foetal alcohol syndrome, by as much as 500 per cent.

Kasi Sridhar, a professor at the University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, reports finding large numbers of marijuana smokers amongst young cancer patients. While only 17 per cent of the patients in his study were marijuana smokers, two-thirds of the patients younger than 45 actually smoked cannabis.

Since the 1970s, there have been more than 10,500 scientific studies which demonstrate the adverse consequences of marijuana use. Many of these studies draw upon data collected when most of the marijuana available in the US, where these studies were predominantly done, was far less potent than that available today. Indeed, drug czar (as they call him) Lee Brown says that marijuana on the streets today is up to 10 times more potent than it was a generation ago, and this fact contributes to its addictive nature. It also further serves to highlight the results in those 10,500 studies which I just referred to and which were predominantly done in the 1970s when marijuana was much less potent than it is today.