[NEWS] SMH - One in five say drug use not that risky

[NEWS] SMH 27/10/06 - One in five say drug use not that risky

One in five say drug use not that risky
October 27, 2006 - 9:04PM

Almost 20 per cent of people do not believe monthly or weekly use of amphetamines, heroin, ecstasy or hallucinogens pose great health risks, a report has revealed.

The Illicit Drug Use In Queensland report by the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission analysed the views of 13,000 people over the age of 18, between 2002 and 2005.

While the majority of respondents believed weekly drug use to be harmful, almost 20 per cent believed monthly use of hard drugs - dubbed so because of the harm they can do - carried only moderate or slight risks, or none at all.

Sleeping pills and tranquilisers were thought to be the safest, with only 67 per cent believing their use carried great risks.

Amphetamines and ecstasy were rated the same, with just over 20 per cent believing there were moderate, slight or no risks involved with using.

Heroin was perceived to be the most dangerous drug, with nearly all citing great risks involved with its use.

Cannabis - a soft drug - was thought to be the safest, with less than 40 per cent believing its use carried a great risk.

Sixty per cent of people believed its weekly use was very harmful.

Men, younger people and those who had used drugs perceived the risks to be lower across all drugs categories.

Results showed perceptions of the dangers of drugs grew over the years.

© 2006 AAP

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From here

Drugs have been around a long time. We dont need "new research" from smh.

Drugs have been around a long time. We dont need "new research" from smh

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The research was conducted by the Crime and Misconduct Commission and is an important finding IMO. Just how it will be viewed and debated is another question altogether.

Yes but i hate how they act as if its a new trend. For example only this generation of schoolkids are doing drugs. Thats the type of message that they try to send. That drugs are a problem of today not of 20 or 100yrs ago aswell.

Those findings are interesting.. Just love how people percieve pot as not harmful when I can certainly say it is. Wonder what peoples perception of GHB would be? probably viewed as extremely harmful, even though it hasn't been proven to do any damage to the body or brain in any studies, and in-fact it's ability to stimulate growth hormone could be a reason to see it as benificial. Its amazing how little people care to know that that kind of thing, just so much easier to swallow the news whole..

Those findings are interesting.. Just love how people percieve pot as not harmful when I can certainly say it is.

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What I find most interesting is that, of all the school mates I've stayed in contact with who have/had smoked dope since their late teens - many were heavy or every day users - to my knowledge not one has ever presented with any sort of extreme psychotic or mental health problem that's been directly related to marijuana. Sure, there's been typical bouts of depression, and grief from lost love ones, divorce etc, and the typical midlife crisis which we all eventually face - but IMO dope hasn't played any significant part in causing any of this and all recovered without abstaining from their much loved dope.

Many of these ol' mates have given up completely over the years, but usually out of concerns related to smoking itself or from realizing the stoned state is not as desirable in older age.

In saying that, two things relating to our early dope smoking differed significantly from a typical scenario of today;

1) None of us started smoking dope until we'd left highschool, so none of us were under 17 when we began using.

2) More often than not we smoked leaf and low THC forms of locally (NZ) grown stuff, although many of us smoked most week nights after work.

Perhaps there's some truth regarding the generally higher potency dope of today, and I'm sure starting at a younger age could be a contributing factor in mental health problems said to be associated with marijuana use.

In regards to other drug use and the 70's; we did try a few things before leaving highschool - mostly because dope was impossible to get and almost everyone was eager to try it - but this was mainly limited to inhalants, pharms and the odd plant extract ( most of which never seemed to work well anyway).

It's therefore important to appreciate that while todays kids may take more drugs than we did as teens in the mid 70's, there was no less desire to take them back then. The drugs though were much less available, which meant for most of us that we'd have to wait till they were. However, out of all the talking we did before we got to try different drugs, we became very conscious of the dangers associated with particular drugs. When we did find the pot of gold i.e. a source for various drugs, we would discuss any new drug between ourselves before deciding it was safe to do. Most stuck to the group decisions - at least for those years we hung together - and drugs like speed and heroin were initially given a no-go tag. Later, we did try speed and some strayed to Coolsville (heroin) but all in all we looked after each other while we eagerly searched for the ultimate high.

So, while the concept of harm reduction hadn't been invented at the time, we applied our own sensibility. Ultimately we may have used more drugs by our early 20's than people average today. But we did it carefully, appreciating that we were both social experimenters and thinkers who wanted answers to the bigger questions.

In summary then I'd have to say as teenagers of the mid 70's we did use far less drugs than the kids of today, but mostly only because we couldn't get exotic illicits, or were yet to identify the drugs that were available. Education was the key to finding new drugs, and a very good little book on the subject - Hallucinogenic plants by Richard Evans Shultes published by Golden Press - led us to discover all manner of plants we could get high on. The book is now out of print but is available as an e-book.

We have to look at why kids are taking more drugs than say 30 years or so ago. Besides peer pressure/education, IMHO it's simply that the information is available that wasn't back then. Kids of today are much the same as back then, but both information on drugs, and drugs themselves are easily obtainable. The void that existed all those years ago when I was a drug curious teenager has been well and truly filled.

ilikeacid said:

Those findings are interesting.. Just love how people percieve pot as not harmful when I can certainly say it is. Wonder what peoples perception of GHB would be? probably viewed as extremely harmful, even though it hasn't been proven to do any damage to the body or brain in any studies, and in-fact it's ability to stimulate growth hormone could be a reason to see it as benificial. Its amazing how little people care to know that that kind of thing, just so much easier to swallow the news whole..

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While I can understand what your saying, you have to remember that the definition of risky or harmful is not limited to long term physical effects on your body. I've seen G cause a lot more harm than pot.

And what happens when alot of other activitys including drinking and smoking are more harmful than all drugs put together? Does that mean that no matter how risky marijuana is your still not doing something as risky. I mean this idiot researchers would love if you stayed on the side of the law and drank and killed your bladder and liver etc, while marijuana is helping ppl on cancer and aids live healthy lives.

rogan said:

While I can understand what your saying, you have to remember that the definition of risky or harmful is not limited to long term physical effects on your body. I've seen G cause a lot more harm than pot.

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Although we may see people blowing out each weekend as a result of G, the long term psychological effects of weed are certainly underestimated IMO. These are the effects that most people don't see or fob off because they occur over a longer period of time, rather then the classic 'OD' scenario which is often what gives a drug its 'risky' tag.

To place a tag on a drug as less risky or less harmful then another is risky in itself. All drugs have the potential to be risky and cause damage, whether this be physical or psychological. If drug use is approached with knowledge and caution these risks and dangers can be minimised, but certainly not eliminated.

Just my 2c