Protection for children critiqued

WELLINGTON: Anticannabis campaigners say the minimum age of 20 to use and buy the drug would not stop young people from feeling the harm of legalisation.

Marijuana can halt motivation for young people, leading to them dropping out of school and stunting their development, and it can cause mental health issues like psychosis.

However, those issues are already happening in New Zealand, and international examples show Canada’s youth usage rates dropped after legalisation.

Diana Ranger has seen the worst of cannabis use in young people.

Her nephew was forced to take the drug by a gang when he was 10, and she said he suffered from psychosis as a result.

That happened 40 years ago, and the man was still feeling the effects today, she said.

That sort of story causes serious concern for Say No to Dope campaign leader Aaron Ironside.

He did not think an age limit on purchase would stop children from trying it, as was the case with current alcohol laws.

Mr Ironside said when the brain was developing, you did not want to be using substances that could affect that development.

‘‘The risk of psychosis, the risk of cannabis use disorder, is four times higher for adolescent use, but also it’s in the flowon effects of poor educational outcomes which in turn lead to poor employment outcomes.’’

There are no arguments from doctors about the harm cannabis can cause, although there is debate over the severity.

Prof Joe Boden, of the University of Otago, was on the panel formed by the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser, looking into cannabis.

He said psychosis was a concern, and was already happening to young children in New Zealand under an unregulated market.

He said the concern about how it affected schooling was also more complicated, and not necessarily healthrelated.

‘‘You have to keep in mind of course that some of that is due to school exclusion because cannabis is one of the few things that you can be automatically excluded from secondary school in New Zealand for,’’ Prof Boden said.

Mr Ironside said he was also concerned about the secondhand effects of smoking cannabis.

‘‘We’ve heard from many teachers who can give firsthand accounts of the children who come from homes where cannabis is being used, that the children are clearly affected, clearly unable to engage in a days schooling in the same way that their classmates are able to.’’ — RNZ