Drug Use In Australia Essay

The perception and policy on cannabis has been clouded by ill-informed attitudes uphold by a section of society and by the legacy of the various ‘war on drugs’. A handful of countries such as SPAIAN, Netherlands, North Korea, Colombia, Portugal, and parts of United States of America, have legalised medical and recreational use of cannabis. However cannabis is currently illegal in Australia, state of Victoria soon to legalise medicinal cannabis, but the handling and benefits of the current policies are inundated by the potential social opportunity cost if legalisation was to occur. The question is, should cannabis be legalised here in Australia? The following three main pillars of arguments will illustrate why cannabis should be legalised in Australia; decriminalisation, regulation and relative ramification.

Meanwhile marijuana has not accounted for a single death in the United States. This has led many teenagers to switch over to marijuana and by legalizing it the switch to a safer drug would continue and it would also make it cheaper than other illicit drugs. This correlation can be seen by the statistics provided by the NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) 2011 study. About 25% of teens surveyed said they tried marijuana at least once last year, a statistically significant rise of about 4% since 2007. Additionally, 6.6% of 12th graders also admitted to smoking weed daily (Gwynne). The study has also shown historic lows of use of alcohol and cigarettes since 1981.Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%), (Gwynne). As teenagers will always continue to experiment with illegal substances, its best we influence them with the safest drug, marijuana. This change is already happening as NIDA studies have shown teenager marijuana use at historic highs and alcohol and cigarette use at historic lows, and will continue if marijuana is perceived as safe and becomes cheaper with

Compared to meth and crystal meth use, rates of cannabis use among adolescent students are typically high (Bouchard et al., 2011). In the mid to late 2000s, the Canadian illicit drug market has generally remained stable (NIA et al., 2010). National Intelligence Analysis et al. (2010) contend that cannabis remained to be the most popular illicit

Marijuana is a plant that people use for various reasons, whether that is for medicinal, recreational, social, personal, religious or nutritional uses. Recreational cannabis (marijuana), is designed to help get people high, the compound that recreational users chase is Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, which bonds with specific receptors in the brain to produce a number of effects. It can have a sedative effect, relax your inhibitions, increase your appetite, lower your blood pressure and many other factors. Marijuana can also interfere with your short-term memory, lower your reaction time and make you unsteady and off balance. Even though marijuana has been classed as an illegal drug, there are some negatives, there are many studies that prove marijuana is less harmful to our bodies than other legal dangers, such as drinking or smoking.

In Australia there is a multitude of medication available to us to increase our quality of life that are typically used appropriately in the community. However, there has been a growing number of individuals misusing pharmaceutical drugs and this has now become an emerging public issue in Australia and overseas. This research will be based on the misuse of the following pharmaceutical drugs: opioids, benzodiazepines and codeine. All of which have the potential to become an addiction. The extent to which these drugs are misused by individuals will range from those intentionally using these drug for recreational reasons, to those who are unware that they are misusing the drugs due to inappropriate prescribing.

Drug use in America is one of the major issues we face and the problem has skyrocketed over the past three decades. Heroin and painkiller addictions exceed all other countries. It is important that we address some of the causes that lead to the abuse, how to treat the abuse, and how to prevent the distribution of illegal prescription drugs.

Marijuana is the most popular illicit drug used among our teenagers in the United States. Research shows that 42% of high school seniors have smoked Cannabis, 18% within the past month and 5% smoked daily and 1 in 6 are addicts. More than 64% of teenagers reported that marijuana is very easily available (Gary). Unfortunately, some parents live in a world of denial and say “It’s not my kid. My child doesn’t smoke.” Unbeknown to us, there are unfavorable concerns for many young marijuana abusers such as the risk of addiction, poor school performances and a “gateway” to other lethal substances. Smoking marijuana increases respiratory diseases, impaired immune function, cognitive problems and motivational impairment. (National Institute on Drug Abuse). It is the leading cause of abnormal cognitive development which persists long after abstinence. Marijuana is the main drug used by children who seek emergency medical treatments and screened following an arrest or autopsies (Dennis et at).

The University of Michigan “annually survey in 2010 ” identified that adolescents nationwide, will start using drugs from 8, 10, and 12-grade use drugs, which include alcohol, Tabaco, marijuana, and other drugs; the survey shows the increased of marijuana use among high school seniors to daily basis. Consumption is the highest in comparison with the previous study nearly 65% of those students use marijuana as their primary drug of choice.

Having, owning, and being in control of cannabis is a crime that must remain illegal in Australia.

The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world's population, our country houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's reported prisoners. Currently there are approximately two million people in American prisons or jails. Since 1984 the prison population for drug offenders has risen from ten percent to now over thirty percent of the total prison population. Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug offenses. State prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates in 2005; 253,300 for drug offenses. Sixty percent of the drug offenders in prisons are nonviolent and were purely in prison because of drug offenses (Drug War Facts). The question then arises,

The book that I read “This is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret of Getting High in America by Ryan Grim” tells us the stories and relationship among Americans, their drugs and the government, which is a drug literature. The book and author will give us a tour in an illicit world of drugs use in the United States. The Americans dilemma of love-hate relationship with psychotomimetic substances extended from the nations commencing until the present time.

“The earlier marijuana use begins and the heavier it becomes, the stronger the tendency to use other drugs is” (Effects of marijuana on youth 2). For instance, it introduces that among high school seniors who use marijuana daily, four times as many report daily alcohol consumption; twice as many report daily tobacco use. People don’t realize how dangerous marijuana can be; when they smoke it, they don’t think about the future consequences but only of the momentaneous pleasure it gives

In the span of 2013-14 the reports of drugs in Australia increased. There were record high reporting’s of many types of illicit drugs at the border patrol. Furthermore, many other illicit drugs had their second highest reporting in history. Cannabis is the most common drug in Australia. The number of detections of cannabis in 2013-2014 decreased, but the total weight of detected cannabis at the border control increased dramatically and was the biggest cannabis find in the last decade (Australian Drug Commission 2014). In the draft for the National Drug Strategy 2016-2025 cannabis is mentioned as a priority drug as it is the most common used illegal drug (Intergovernmental Committee on Drugs 2015). As the recent news that the Australian government is planning to legalise growing of medical cannabis there a gap in the policy of how to regulate medical cannabis and cannabis used as an illicit drug (Yaxley 2015).

Harm reduction aims to reduce the rate of severe events that stem from substance abuse. The main goal is to keep people safe when they engage in drug and alcohol abuse, not to prevent them from doing it altogether. Harm-reduction strategies support the idea that there are many ways to abuse drugs and alcohol, and some methods are much more safer

Currently drug abuse is the issue that has plagued almost all the societies in the world. This problem poses serious threat to the life of people both in developed and underdeveloped countries. There are different kinds of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, cannabis, hallucinogens, ecstasy, and methamphetamine and so on (McGeorge & Aitken, 1997). Young and age-old people largely use many of these drugs. People usually consider these drugs as a relief from their worries, but these drugs lead them towards addition and psychotic disorders that eventually destroy their health. Legislative authorities in almost every part of the world have been trying to save their generations from the abuse, but the use of these drugs never ended. However, these legislations help to minimize the numbers of drug users where their implementation is done properly (Hall et al., 2004). The aim of this research paper is to provide knowledge about the Cannabis Legalization in Australia and the people’s approach who favor or oppose this legalization. Cannabis drug use, impacts, cannabis legalization in Australia and its advantages and disadvantages will also