Unbiased information on cannabis needed

The New Zealand Drug Foundation has called on the Government to commission and release a report that gives unbiased information to the public on cannabis health effects and options for law reform.

Spokesperson Sally Jackman said "the quality of debate around cannabis problems is poor. Health effects are often either exaggerated or down-played. Public figures tell stories about people they know, rather than give the facts."

"The use of vague language about powerful effects can frighten parents unnecessarily. It makesdebate on reducing cannabis problems difficult because it feeds hysteria about the drug."

"For example, recently, Lower Hutt Major, John Terris was reported to say "marijuana is known to have serious effects on the brain and reporductive capacity". It is hard to know exactly what this means. It could mean cannabis causes serious brain damage and birth defects. The reality is more complex."

"Sophisticated experimentation has failed to find evidence of structural change in the brains of heavy long term cannabis users. There is evidence of subtle effects on heavy users ability to organise complex information after a period of abstinence. Occassional use of cannabis has not been found to effect thinking capacity in the long term unless there has been a previous history of regular use.

There is evidence that cannabis smoking in pregnancy lead to reduced birthweight in infants. Thsi effect is small compared to the impact of tobacco smoking on birthweight. The evidence that cannabis produces genetic abnormalities that are passed onto offspring is weak."

The Foundation has written to the Minister of Health asking her to produce an unbiased report on cannabis health effects and options for cannabis law. the report should be released before the Health Select Committee calls for submissions so that community organisations can refer to it, when they are preparing their submissions.