Study finds marijuana use on rise Growing acceptance may lead to law change By Shelly Simonds Increasing acceptance of marijuana use by people under 40 may result in its decriminalisation within 20 years, a new study claims. Current laws and drug education policies have failed to cut marijuana use, said Professor Ian McAllister, the new head of the Research School of Social Sciences and one of the study's authors. The number of teenagers who have tried marijuana has grown to 41 per cent from 32 per cent in 1985 while in the general population the number of people using marijuana has stabilised at about 30 per cent. Prof McAllister said these trends indicate that a majority of people will favour legalisation in the coming decades. "We have found that marijuana use is a major predictor of attitudes toward legalisation. Those who have tried it, feel it's not dangerous and tend to have more relaxed attitudes toward regulation," he said. The study found that marijuana use is fairly uniform throughout the country with only slight variations from state to state. In Victoria, for example, marijuana users were more likely to smoke a joint while those surveyed in South Australia preferred to use bongs. In the ACT, people were less likely to smoke marijuana in automobiles. Prof McAllister said the findings point to similar levels of use around the world with almost 30 per cent of people in Australia, the Netherlands and the United States having tried the drug. "These findings are interesting, given that these three countries have vastly different approaches to regulating marijuana," Prof McAllister said. "The conclusion is that use remains impervious to a range of policies we've put into place." The study was co-authored by Toni Makkai, of the Australian Institute of Criminology, and commissioned by the Department of Health and Family Services under the Keating Government. It found that public perceptions of what constituted a drug had also changed in recent years. Only 6 per cent of those surveyed in 1985 felt alcohol was part of the drug problem as opposed to 14 per cent in 1995. Most remained unaware that the social costs of legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol outweigh the costs of illegal drugs like marijuana. Prof McAllister said the study's findings pointed out the need for more emphasis on drug education. "People are going to try marijuana, so we need education to minimise the potential risks."