Through the maze

"I'm going to a conference on cannabis," I said. "Will they give you any?" almost everyone asked.

The conference is the New Zealand Drug Foundation's international drug policy symposium. This year, it's titled "Through the maze: cannabis and health". I'm here because The Wireless is working on features on cannabis and on addiction for early next year.

Many young New Zealanders will know someone who smokes a lot. The findings of one study suggest that about 80 percent of young people will have used cannabis on at least one occasion by the time they turn 21. Ten percent will develop a pattern of heavy dependent use.  

The last such conference was held 20 years ago, and so the question is put: What has been learned in the past two decades?

Professor Wayne Hall of Queensland University opens the conference by taking stock. He tells the gathered academics and practitioners that, if anything, the adverse effects of smoking cannabis may be more common than people thought in 1993.

We'll look at the adverse effects in more detail in the coming months, but in short: heavy users, and especially in people who start young, are likely to suffer some mental health effects – especially psychosis – and some physical health effects – especially respiratory problems.

"If you smoke stuff, and you smoke it often enough, it's going to be bad for your lungs," said Dr Richie Poulton from Otago University. It might also affect learning, memory, and the development of the brain.

In the most evocative presentation of the conference, filmmaker Paora Te Oti Takarangi Joseph brought musicians Rio Hemopo (of Trinity Roots) and Lani Hunt to the stage. After a waiata, Lani spoke about his addiction to cannabis. Living on the street from a young age in Whangarei, he ended up in New Plymouth, sleeping under a bridge, constantly chasing the high he felt when he first smoked pot. "You just keep smoking more and more to get that high, and once you get to the top, that's a long way to fall."

So what exactly is a heavy user? Well, Associate Professor Nadia Solowij of University of Wollongong refers to studies where subjects smoked seven joints a day – for 20 years.

But she says all of them lived "functional lives", and, though there are a lot of unknowns, it's not all bad news.

Cannabis has a good guy, and a bad guy: Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). While cannabis may exacerbate psychotic symptoms – especially in the vulnerable adolescent brain – CBD has anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic properties. But it has largely been bred out of the drug you might be buying.

On day two, the conference shifts to talking about the justice system. And the question seems to be how to legislate, or regulate, a "moderately harmful" drug, when the views on it are so polarised. Some want it completely legalised, saying making people pay for the drug could mitigate the harms. Others argue that, especially for adolescents, prohibition is the only way.

It's a complicated question, but Khylee Quince, associate dean of the faculty of law at Auckland University, says the current law and the way it is administered discriminate against Maori. Sacha Norrie, from the criminal justice advocacy group JustSpeak, points out that illicit drug offenses comprise only 4 percent of youth offending, and 97 percent of those are cannabis-related. But in the past 20 years, apprehensions leading to prosecution have doubled, and if you're Maori, you're more likely to be prosecuted.

Kevin Sabet, the Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, points out one truism: the attitudes of young people on whether a drug is harmful are related to whether they use it or not. In January, when we tackle the theme of "Excess", The Wireless will have stories on cannabis, addiction, and we'll look at the first six months of the Psychoactive Substances Bill.

And to answer the initial question, no. With the exception of the hemp lollipop in the goodie bag, there didn't appear to be any free product on offer.