OLD AND OFF THEIR FACES

The Number Of People Still Using Marijuana In Their 30s And 40s Is
Escalating And Their Children Are Following Suit, Writes Carmel Egan

JOY expected one of her children to experiment with cannabis. It was
almost inevitable, living on Sydney's northern beaches where the drug
culture is as entrenched as the pursuit of surf and sun.

She anticipated her child would be induced by a friend to take that
first toke, just as she was as a schoolgirl in the 1970s.

"Those were the days of Buddha sticks," Joy says. "I can't even
remember how we used them." Two of Joy's four children became regular
cannabis users between the ages of 15 and 17. Both are now in their
20s and although one is an occasional user, Joy is confident his
dalliance will have no long-term effect. But the 46-year-old,
middle-class mum didn't tell her children of her own teenage
experiences until years later. "It just hadn't come up in
conversation," she says.

Lana Coleman plans a different approach. She will wait for her
10-year-old daughter to ask but plans to tell all. In anticipation of
that day Coleman, also from Sydney's northern beaches, enrolled in a
Parents Prepared course at the Manly Drug Education Centre. "Kids are
going to experiment, you need to give them information," she says.

Coleman's first puff was with a boyfriend in the company of a group
of older children when she was 13. She sees it now as a fairly
typical teenage adventure, along with sneaking into pubs for an
underage drink. It caused her no harm and her interest faded.

I have a small percentage of friends who are still using it," says
Coleman, soon to turn 40. "Some are still hooked."

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2004 (a federal
Government initiative) identified a significant change in marijuana
use among 30 and 40-year-olds. Rather than dropping off dramatically
as it had in the past, the number of people still using marijuana in
their 30s and 40s is escalating.

"I come from a generation at university in the '70s where everybody
smoked," says David Murray, chief executive officer of Melbourne's
Young People's Substance Abuse Service. "A lot of my friends would
have smoked well into their 40s, just as they might have a glass of
red at dinner. In baby boomers there is a cultural association with
cannabis and an attitude that [smoking it] is a harmless event."

The household survey found 15.9 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds and
8.7 per cent of 40 to 49-year-olds had used the illicit drug in the
past 12 months.

The concern is that a growing number of Australian adults continue to
use cannabis at an age when they are likely to be parents of teenagers.

"The belief is that [parental use] is going to have an impact on what
their children do," says Paul Dillon of the National Drug and Alcohol
Research Centre. "I often get parents coming up saying they use
occasionally. They don't promote it, but if they had to choose they
would prefer their children use cannabis to amphetamines, which they
don't understand. The sad part for me is that what we are seeing with
the young is very different patterns of cannabis use from their
parents. They are smoking more, smoking more often, smoking stronger
parts of the plants and they are doing it in a riskier way with bongs
instead of joints."

Cannabis is the most commonly reported illicit drug used by 12 to
19-year-olds, with 13.5 per cent having used it in the past 12
months, according to the household study.

Another 2004 national report for the federal Government analysed data
collected from 23,000 secondary students at 363 schools. It found 25
per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds had used cannabis at least once in
their lives. Thirty-nine per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds had tried it.

A family history of drug-taking is known to have a significant
influence on juvenile offenders' harmful alcohol, cannabis, heroin or
amphetamine habits, although there are usually a multiplicity of other causes.

"Seven out of 10 kids are introduced to drugs by somebody they know.
If it is their parents then you are taking away some of the
prohibitions: you expect mum and dad to say no to you," says Moses
Abbatangelo, acting CEO of Odyssey Institute of Studies. "The earlier
the onset of drug use the more likely there will be problems.
Naturally it flows that if mum and day say OK then maybe everybody
else is wrong."

It is the method, quantity and frequency that is most alarming in the
young, particularly as evidence mounts of the impact of heavy use on
still-developing brains.

Many professionals believe evidence is firming of an association
between marijuana use and schizophrenia or anxiety and depression in
people with a predisposition -- although some dispute a causal link.

The release last month of the landmark report into Australia's
deteriorating state of mental health provision, Not for Service,
highlighted the issue when co-author Ian Hickie warned drug-using
parents of a false sense of security about children and cannabis.

"Cannabis would be the best example of something that's assumed by
parents and teenagers themselves to be not particularly harmful,"
Hickie says. "It's often portrayed as similar to alcohol.

"If parents continue to smoke, their kids smoke. If parents are
significant users of alcohol or other drugs, their kids use at much
higher rates."

Former premier of Victoria and now chairman of Beyond Blue Jeff
Kennett once advocated decriminalisation of marijuana before backing
away from it. "We haven't as a community given cannabis smoking -- or
being opposed to cannabis smoking -- a high enough priority," Kennett
says in response to the Not For Service report. "It has almost been a
leisure drug. It's almost been a hip thing to do so no one has given
it a priority above the norm.

"Because we are all different it could change significantly the level
of psychosis within an individual and that could lead to depression."

Yet, the cannabis debate remains polarised. On one side are the
anti-drugs campaigners and conservative politicians such as federal
parliamentary secretary for health Chris Pyne, who exhorts state
governments to toughen up their policing of cannabis.

On the other side health are professionals and researchers such as
John Toumbourou, of the Centre for Adolescent Health, at the
University of Melbourne, who believes Australia's open attitude to
cannabis use is paying dividends. Toumbourou argues the Australian
approach to education and counselling ahead of punishment of
first-time offenders has been successful in slowing the growth in
drug use among young people.

Illicit drug use is less in Australia compared with the US. While the
household survey found 13.5 per cent of 15 to 17-year-old Australians
used cannabis in the past 12 months, the figure is 23 per cent in the
US. "The important point is a tolerant attitude [of parents to drugs]
is a two-edged sword," Toumbourou says. "A parental history of drug
use is reported more frequently in our studies, but in the US a more
hardline view results in a disaffection among drug users. The
tolerant community and family attitude to cannabis is one of the
differences between us and the US. The great strength is that it
allows open debate and discussion.

"We are less likely to suspend children from school in Australia for
cannabis use or other problems. In the US they are thrown out and
that probably creates an alien subculture. And there has been a move
in the past five years of clever policing using diversion. So in the
first instance they may go in for counselling.

"But many teenagers we know are actually using the substance daily on
an ongoing basis and may continue that for some years and that's the
pattern of use which appears to be much more problematic in terms of
depression and suicide. I agree with Chris Pyne that research is
firming that cannabis is contributing to mental health but if we go
in the direction of using the law to crack down we will create a
greater problem."

Toumbourou's advice to a parent who has used cannabis in the past is
to read the research, be frank and upfront and open with your
children. Discuss the risks and the potential for health risks -- it
is the reason Australians have reduced their cigarette smoking from
75 per cent of the post-World War II population to 17 per cent today.

It would not be hypocritical of parents to say they were unaware of
the risks a generation ago and that theirs was uninformed behaviour.
"But you are playing russian roulette if you are a parent who
encourages cannabis use," he says. "If you have an addiction as your
children enter adolescence it is time to consider doing something about it."