The tale of a survey: Beware of marijuana

María Teresa
Chadwick  

By María Teresa Chadwick,

Executive Secretary
National Council for the Control of Narcotics (CONACE)
Ministry of Interior, Chile

The Seventh National Study of Drug Usage in the General Population (2006), which just released in Chile, highlighted a stabilization of the use of coca paste and cocaine in the country but an increase in the consumption of marijuana. Last year’s prevalence rose from 5.3% to 7% nationally, a record that had never been recorded before in all studies that the CONACE has carried out since 1994.

This increase in the use of marijuana was limited to young people (19-25 years old) and young adults (26-34 years old), rising from 15% to 19% and from 7% to 10%, respectively. For the first time, the young adults group declared more marijuana use than the adolescents group (12-18 years old), which presents a variation of 7% to 8% in the last two years. The increase in marijuana use is strongly linked to people in high-income households (average of $2,000 a month or more), which registered an increase from 9% to 19% between 2004 and 2006, and to young people who stated that they were attending a center of higher education, whose prevalence rose from 17% to 21%.

This rise in the consumption of marijuana took place in the context of stability in the use of alcohol as well as the other illicit drugs and pharmaceutical drugs without a medical prescription.

Why, then, did marijuana use rise? This study delivers very precise evidence that demonstrates that the increase in marijuana use is directly linked to the decline in the perception of risk with regard to this drug, a drop of 10 percentage points (from a 72% in 2004 to 62% in2006). This strong decline stems primarily from the youngest population segment.

It is important to note that the study data on the drop in the perceived risk coincides with the increase in prevalence of use. The perceived risk in high income households dropped 20 percentage points, barely reaching 41%. In the country’s poorest households, the perceived risk dropped only 5 points to 70%, a difference of almost 30 percent points with upper income group.

This increase of marijuana use is concentrated in groups that are not usually in the spotlight of public prevention programs. The main efforts of the Government of Chile have been aimed at school-age children to prevent or delay the initiation age of the abuse of alcohol and the consumption of illicit drugs. At the same time, these policies have sought to provide prevention tools to low income groups, which are more exposed to early initiation of drug use as well as the escalation towards drugs like coca paste and cocaine.

In this context, the stability of base paste and cocaine usage, as well as the consumption of marijuana by adolescents and the high thresholds of perceived risk in the poorest households, are encouraging news for these prevention programs.

Above all, an increase in prevalence and social acceptance of the use of marijuana, although it appears limited to young people, universities and medium-high income households, is an issue of concern.

This seventh study provides evidence about the dangers of trivializing the use of marijuana. The data shows, in effect, that the marijuana consumption weakens the perceived risk for cocaine and Ecstasy dramatically and increases the likelihood of consuming these drugs. Among young people, the perceived risk of experimental use of cocaine (one or two uses) reaches 61% among those who have not used any drugs but falls to 43% for those who have been using only marijuana. The same trend shows up with Ecstasy, whereby 72% of young people who have not used any drugs believe that they run a greater risk by trying it, while 49% that have only used marijuana believe the same. Marijuana use predisposes a person towards the use of more dangerous drugs in a significant and consistent way.

What’s more, the rate of marijuana consumers with signs of dependency is higher than is believed generally. At least one person out of four who have used marijuana in the past year show signs of dependency — in other words, tolerance, withdrawal syndrome and compulsive use of the drug, according to the the ICD 10 scale (International Classification of Diseases - Tenth Revision of the World Health Organization),  a figure that belies the assumption that marijuana is harmless and does not produce addiction. Data from this study, which confirms the latest European Union statistics that marijuana is the second more significant drug requiring treatment programs, shows that people who acknowledge consuming marijuana are the ones who declare having needed to participate in a treatment program. In fact, in Chile marijuana is the second most important drug leading to treatment, after coca paste.

It is time to become aware of these risks and redouble our preventative efforts that should come not just from the government, but also from young people themselves, families and the entire community.