• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: Tronica

NEWS: Cannabis decline has drug users in ecstasy - Brisbane Times, 20.04.11

Mr Blonde

Mr Blonde

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
13,811
Location
Brisbane, Australia
Ecstasy may soon take over cannabis as the most commonly consumed drug in the state, unreleased research is expected to reveal.
The University of Queensland's Alcohol and Drug Research Education Centre has recently completed research into illicit drug use that shows cannabis consumption has continued to decline across the state, while ecstasy use is on the rise.
Although the findings have not been released, centre director Jake Najman said data uncovered by the study revealed ecstasy had come close to overtaking marijuana as the most commonly used drug across all demographics.
Advertisement: Story continues below
And he said the drug could surpass cannabis in some age groups.
Research for many years has shown cannabis use has been on a steady decline since the late 1990s.
"Cannabis isn't anywhere near as popular as it used to be," Professor Najman said.
"It is getting to a level now where a couple of other drugs are starting to compete with cannabis and the main competition in terms of popularity is coming from ecstasy."
Earlier figures from the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey showed cannabis usage among all Australian males aged over 14 dropping from 21.3 per cent in 1998 to 11.6 per cent in 2007.
Ecstasy, meanwhile, had steadily risen from a usage of 1.1 per cent of males in 1995 to 4.4 per cent in 2007.
Professor Najman said the latest research by the Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research Education was more recent than the National Drug Strategy survey.
"In the last 10 years there has been a fairly steady decline in cannabis use and that decline stretches across all age groups," he said.
Professor Najman said he believed cannabis had declined over the past 10 to 12 years due to increased publicity about the negative effects of extreme marijuana usage, as well as the decline in the number of Australians smoking generally.
He said this bad press may have seen younger drug users move to other drugs such as ecstasy.
"The impression we have, and I am taking this impression from data that has been collected in the US, is that kids at school tend to be fairly responsive to the perception of how dangerous particular drugs are and when they hear about some drugs being dangerous they typically switch to other drugs," Professor Najman said.
"I think part of what is happening is kids are switching to other drugs because they are hearing stories about the dangers associated with cannabis...
"There's a paper we wrote talking about schizophrenia as one of the potential consequences of very long term use, that it can precipitate schizophrenic episodes, that's really long term use and fairly heavy use.
"You get the impression that a lot of young people regard ecstasy as pretty benign and that may be affecting their decision to use it."
However close ecstasy use is getting to cannabis in terms of popularity, the drug does not appear to be causing as many problems for drug treatment services as marijuana.
According to the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services in Australia report of 2008-09, 36.4 per cent of Queensland clients saw centres with an issue primarily concerned with cannabis, greater than both alcohol (35.8 per cent) and ecstasy (2.3 per cent).
Drug Arm Queensland operations manager Mark Clark said he would be was surprised if it could be shown that ecstasy had became more popular than cannabis.
"The other thing to remember is a large percentage of drug users are poly-users, it's not necessarily one or the other," he said.
"People might use amphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy and alcohol. In a more likely scenario a combination of drugs are used."
The federal government's Department of Health and Ageing website warns readers that the consequences of cannabis use may include dependence, anxiety and depression, sleep problems, lowered sex drive, learning difficulties and poorer educational outcomes.
They could also experience memory problems, respiratory illnesses, increased cancer risk as well as paranoia and other psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and development of schizophrenia.
Professor Najman said he believed a major issue with cannabis was that it was a demotivating drug.
"People at school who use cannabis will be as not interested in their studies, and will not be bothered and they can perform pretty bad academically," he said.
"And that's pretty serious kind of consequences because you are nearing up to the rest of your life and if you can't be bothered you're going to have a very poor platform for the rest of your life."
Professor Najman said recent research at the university had revealed the babies of women who had smoked cannabis during pregnancy were 250 to 300 grams lighter than other children.
Of the more serious mental health side effects, such as the development of schizophrenia, Professor Najman said it was unclear how much cannabis a person had to consume, and for how long they had to consume it, for these side effects to come into play.
But he did say using small quantities of the drug was unlikely to matter.
"Most cannabis users only use small quantities and only use occasionally," Professor Najman said.
"One of the things we don't want to be doing is punishing people who are having an occasional joint because for most of the time that will not be having any consequences for anyone really, it's a fairly benign behaviour if its an occasional joint."
The Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research Education centre study is expected to be released later this year.


Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/que...-in-ecstasy-20110419-1dnbw.html#ixzz1K2d2aC00
Click to expand...

Link.
 
Last figures from 2007... have to wonder what the numbers on 'ecstasy' use are for 2010/2011...
 
i call bullshit accross the whole article...
simply due to the fact that one persons drug use varies to anothers means that even if you did two studies of two separate groups of people, you would get varying results.
it's useless writing articles like this when even the people doing the research are just speculating regardless of what spin the writer/editor decide to put on the facts.

to think that people are smoking weed less because they think its more dangerous due to the 'bad press' it has received is just blowing smoke up politicians asses.
 
Last figures from 2007... have to wonder what the numbers on 'ecstasy' use are for 2010/2011...
Click to expand...

But the point of the article is that the new figures (admittedly yet to be released) are pointing to an even higher use of ecstasy then in those years. The main guy they are interviewing, Professor Najman, is head of the UQ research unit that is going to release these QLD figures later in the year.

i call bullshit accross the whole article...
simply due to the fact that one persons drug use varies to anothers means that even if you did two studies of two separate groups of people, you would get varying results.
it's useless writing articles like this when even the people doing the research are just speculating regardless of what spin the writer/editor decide to put on the facts.

to think that people are smoking weed less because they think its more dangerous due to the 'bad press' it has received is just blowing smoke up politicians asses.
Click to expand...

Well that depends on how wide your sample base is. If it's a small group of drug users, you have a bigger chance of maybe coming across a statistical cluster but on a wider scale you will start to see the bigger picture. Until the statistics are actually released though, we won't know how many people they have interviewed to get the data.

As for the negative press, I can see where they are coming from. There has been a few different studies and articles on negative side effects of cannabis use in the past year or two, and I feel there is more awareness generally of the fact that cannabis is not harmless. Besides, Prof. Najman even states in the article that most users don't smoke enough to put themselves at risk of those problems and that penalties are too harsh.
 
I find this pretty alarming. As many of us on here would know of the good old days and the decline to junk crap these days, the fact that ecstasy use has continued to rise is a worry and only helps fuel the machine of deceit by scum who continue to pump out utter shite.

With this report that they are releasing, it would be good if they also mention the decline in amount of mdma in pills and the increase in bunk pills.

happy 4/20.
 
I know fuck all people except for the odd teeny bopper who has been taking drugs less than a year who take ecstasy anymore, obviously trends will vary among groups and I am also in a different state than the article is based on but I really don't see an increase in ecstasy use.

Myself and some of my closer friends (who all smoke dope heavily, as I do) have definately noticed a considerable reduction in the amount of heaby smokers these days. Few years ago every single person I knew pretty much chowed bongs 24/7 and hit the biccies on the weekends. Since ecstasy has turned to shit more and more people are turning to methamphetamine, a lot of my old smoking and pilling buddies are real pipe fiends now, and they pretty much only use meth because thats all they can afford.

So yeah, down here in Melbourne I reckon cannabis use is on the decline but ecstasy is pretty much dead, its meth that everyone is interested in (some might say obsessed with in many cases). I guess I can see why meth wouldn't be so big in QLD (although since it is the state that manufactures the most meth domestically there must be a decent market for it...) because the scene seems focused on that base crap and nobody seems to smoke their gear, although I highly doubt the pill/'ecstasy' scene there is anything to write home about either, if any drugs were currently enjoying a considerable increase in popularity up there I would of guessed either cocaine, G or LSD...
 
Last edited:
^ People still definitely buy pills up here. I've noticed a lot of younger people and a lot of people who shall I say are not too knowledgeable about drugs will talk about buying up for the weekend. This is mainly when I go out that I see this, in my small group of friends no one really uses ecstasy anymore due to quality issues but I know my brother's friends do.

Also I don't know what is up with the meth scene here in QLD but people like to buy that base crap still for God knows what reason. :\
 
i bought some smokeable 'speed' when i was at the goldcoast two years ago and it was better than some of the meth ive bought lol.
it was strange chunky almost powdery and yellow, but could def tell it was meth as it crystalised in the pipe and lasted agggges.
could find no pills at all though.
 
I think I'd have to agree that 'ecstasy' use seems to be increasing, but *MDMA* use is a whole other question 8)
 
weed declining and E increasing? hrrrm idk...

definitely of the opinion weed will never get old, and never die. people will certainly not get bored of it anytime soon.
and as for turning to e? fuck if i could find some i might, but for now its just acid and bongs :-/ oooo and mxe shit's the bomb!
 
I don't think weed is becoming less popular, it is more popular than it has ever been I reckon. I think actually the truth is there are more people that smoke cannabis that don't use other illegal drugs and they keep it to themselves.

Cannabis Sativa ftw (Fuck Indica.)
 
Thats not true. First off i think anyone who is using weed is more likely to use it for a longer period of time than mdma etc due to it causing quite bad side effects if used for a long term and also the fact that the pills are crap thesedays which put me off n would put alot of others off too. No wonder so many of us were addicted to mdma when it was in its prime as it was so nice.
 
Mr Blonde said:
But the point of the article is that the new figures (admittedly yet to be released) are pointing to an even higher use of ecstasy then in those years. The main guy they are interviewing, Professor Najman, is head of the UQ research unit that is going to release these QLD figures later in the year.
Click to expand...

I'll eat my proverbial hat if ecstasy use has continued to increase in 2010 - 2011. I could see how it might have continued to rise in 2008 and possibly in to the first half of 2009. But surely by the end of 2009 its use must have been in free fall. You only needed to go to any of the usual festivals summer 2009 / 2010 and play spot the gurner to realise this. That and the fact that every second person was asking "where the f is the MDMA at?"


Sustanon said:
No wonder so many of us were addicted to mdma when it was in its prime as it was so nice.
Click to expand...

AIndeed. When I was ~18 through to about 25 it seemed like everyone I knew took pills. Not even just people I met through the music scene either, I'd run in to people from school, work, sports etc out and they'd all be on it.
Now-a-days though its the total opposite.
 
^ They aren't talking about MDMA use though; they are talking about 'ecstasy' use. Go to the festival and you may not spot a gurner but you know there are probably people there who took something that was sold as ecstasy.
 
Personally i think there is a fair bit of 'mdma' coming back into the markets. Went to a party on the weekend and it was so easy to get it wasn't funny (talking about mdma crystal). But then again, it's all about who you know ey!?
 
I know for a fact that I am drinking much more than I used to. As there is such a shortage of decent speed and ecstasy around where I live, either that or just don't have good contacts any more :)

Weed use, remained the same. I would say that 90% of my white upper-middle class friends, have smoked in the past year.
 
man everyone i know who takes eccies smokes bud, where the hell are they getting their info, then again yes weed is declining in qld cuz all the plants got flooded and everyone is going down south to bring up pills
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top