Jump to full article: Sydney Morning Herald (au), 2008-05-08
Author: Miranda Devine
Intro: Dr Alex Wodak's plan to have the Government sell cannabis in little packets at the post office wasn't just a throwaway line to a bunch of senile hippies at the Mardi-Grass festival in Nimbin last weekend. . . .
But just because there are Australians who smoke cannabis is not a sound reason to legalise the drug, particularly at a time of mounting scientific evidence of its long-term devastating health effects, in particular its link to schizophrenia.
It is exactly the wrong time to legalise cannabis, just as its popularity among young people is diminishing, as shown by the latest Australian Secondary School Students' Use of Alcohol and Drug Survey. . . .
It is irresponsible for a doctor in his position to play down serious research showing the link between marijuana and schizophrenia, and not just for those who are already psychotic.
What he is doing is no different from the tobacco industry denying the links between smoking and lung cancer.
Medical opinion is moving against him, with the journal The Lancet, on July 28 last year, recanting its 1995 editorial which claimed smoking cannabis was not harmful to health, and citing studies which showed "an increase in risk of psychosis of about 40 per cent in participants who had ever used cannabis".
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