1 Jamaican National Commission on Ganja. 2001. A Report of the National Commission on Ganja. Kingston, Jamaica.
2 First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. 1972. Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
3 United Kingdom's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. 2002. The Classification of Cannabis Under the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971. London.
4 Canadian House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. 2002. Policy for the New Millennium: Working Together to Redefine Canada's Drug Strategy. Ottawa.
5 Australian Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare. 1977. Drug Problems in Australia: An Intoxicated Society. Australia Government Publishing Service: Canberra, Australia.
6 New Zealand Parliamentary Health Select Committee. 1998. Inquiry into the Mental Health Effects of Cannabis. Parliament House: Wellington.
7 Swiss Federal Commission for Drug Issues. 1999. Cannabis Report of the Swiss Federal Commission for Drug Issues. Swiss Federal Office of Public Health: Bern.
8 NORML. 2002. European Drug Policy: 2002 Legislative Update. Washington, DC
9 Australian Capitol Territory, New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria
10 Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon
11 In all three countries, amending federal law will simply codify existing police practices, as minor marijuana offenders are rarely arrested or imprisoned in these nations.
12 R. MacCoun and P. Reuter. 2001. Evaluating alternative cannabis regimes. British Journal of Psychiatry 178: 123-128.
13 Australian Institute of Criminology and the New South Wales Department of Politics. 1997. Marijuana in Australia, patterns and attitudes. Monograph Series No. 31, Looking Glass Press (Public Affairs): Canberra, Australia.
14 L. Johnston et al. 1981. Marijuana Decriminalization: The Impact on Youth 1975-1980 (Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 13). Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor.
15 Center for Disease Control National Vital Statistics Report. September 16, 2002.
16 Center for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. April 2002.
17 Australian National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. 1994. The Health and Psychological Consequences of Cannabis Use. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. See specifically: Chapter 9, Section 9.3.1 Acute Effects: "There are no recorded cases of fatalities attributable to cannabis, and the extrapolated lethal dose from animal studies cannot be achieved by recreational users."
18 S. Sidney et al. 1997. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health 87: 1-4.
19 Editorial: "Deglamorising Cannabis." November 11,1995. The Lancet 346.
20 Editorial: "Dangerous Habits." November 14, 1998. The Lancet 352.
21 Canadian Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs. 2002. Cannabis: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy. Ottawa. See specifically: p. 15, "Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use. In this sense, we reject the gateway theory."
22 Ibid. See specifically: p. 15, "Cannabis itself is not a cause of delinquency and crime; and cannabis is not a cause of violence."
23 Ibid. See specifically pp. 16-17: "Most users are not at-risk users ... and most experimenters stop using cannabis. ... Heavy use of cannabis can result in dependence requiring treatment; however, dependence caused by cannabis is less severe and less frequent than dependence on other psychotropic substances, including alcohol and tobacco."
24 Ibid. See specifically p. 18: "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving. Cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving. [Cannabis does have] a negative impact on decision time and trajectory [however] this in itself does not mean that drivers under the influence of cannabis represent a traffic safety risk."
25 Jamaican National Commission on Ganja. 2001. A Report of the National Commission on Ganja. p. 42.
26 Ibid. See Specifically: p. 9, "The 1990 Carl Stone study among respondents age 15 and over island wide showed 47% in the Metropolitan areas and 43% in the rural areas had [previously] used ganja."
27 D. Weatherburn and C. Jones. 2001. Does prohibition deter cannabis use? New South Wales (Australia) Bureau of Crime Statistics: Sydney. See specifically: "Fear of apprehension, fear of being imprisoned, the cost of cannabis or the difficulty in obtaining cannabis do not appear to exert a strong influence on decisions about cannabis consumption. ... Those factors may limit cannabis use among frequent cannabis users, but there is no evidence, as of yet, to support this conjecture."
28 See specifically NORML's Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use.
29 Jamaican National Commission on Ganja. 2001. A Report of the National Commission on Ganja. p. 20.
30 N. Dorn and A. Jamieson. 2001. European Drug Laws: the Room for Manoeuvre. DrugScope: London.
31 Ibid.
32 First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. 1972. Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding.