Drug Policy and Education Council Wellington.

It is surprising that the news item in the Dominion Post last weekend in which Wellington coroner Gary Evans warned about the connection between cannabis use and suicide has been taken so seriously by the media. After all Evans mentioned only two cases with this connection, one happened over a year ago and the other almost three years ago.

This is not good statistics and is not enough to prove a causal link between marijuana use and suicide. Association does not necessarily imply causation. There will be instances where people who committed suicide smoked tobacco cigarettes or drank coffee beforehand.

But no one suggests that tobacco or coffee causes suicide. The 1998 parliamentary inquiry into the mental health effects of cannabis decided the link between cannabis use and suicide was by association only and not by causation. However it cannot be denied that use of mind-altering dru

The real cause of the exceptionally high youth suicide rate in New Zealand is the result of adverse economic conditions after the 1984 reforms on vulnerable people combined with inadequate treatment of mental illness in the community following closure of psychiatric hospitals after 1993.

The accompanying graphs should make this clear. Released by David R Currie Msc. Auck. on 10/3/2003.

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