MEDIA RELEASE – 26/9/11

Cannabis – low/moderate risk to public health

A response to Don Brash’s statement in the media that cannabis is safe and should be legalised

“We welcome Don Brash’s call for a change in our cannabis laws” said Professor Doug Sellman, Director of the National Addiction Centre, “but no psychoactive recreational drug is completely safe.”

“We should be talking in terms of levels of risk rather than categorical safety or not”

“Compared with alcohol, which has been demonstrated to be a Class B equivalent drug ie high risk to public health, cannabis is estimated to be of low/moderate risk to public health”.

“There are four main risks associated with frequent heavy cannabis use as follows:

1. chronic respiratory illness, including lung cancer associated with smoking the drug;

2. injury and death from driving under the influence of cannabis, but less than with alcohol intoxication;

3. increased psychotic symptoms, which is clinically relevant in less than 1% of the population; and

4. a negative impact on learning, particularly relevant for adolescents who are at that critical stage of life when both formal school education as well as complex social learning set a life course for the individual within society.”

“Low-risk cannabis use for adults, which is using cannabis at a level associated with a one in a hundred chance of dying from a cannabis-related event has never been scientifically validated as far as I know”, said Prof Sellman. “This is one of the problems of having the drug prohibited and yet used by thousands of New Zealanders on a relatively frequent basis”.

“However, an educated guess based on low-risk tobacco smoking and low-risk drinking guidelines can be made; everything else being equal, it would probably be smoking cannabis about once a week or less”.

“The recent Law Commission Review of the Misuse of Drugs Act has encouraged public discussion about drugs from a health perspective rather than just as a criminal justice issue, and to use scientific evidence to guide policy making rather than perpetuating drug use as a moral issue”.

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