EU study promises straight dope on marijuana

EU study promises straight dope on marijuanaAgence France PressePublished: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

PARIS - Dutch dope-selling coffee shops, hash smoking in 1960s London, and Moroccan marijuana production all come under the spotlight in a mammoth new study Thursday on the use and abuse of cannabis in Europe.

"Over 13 million Europeans have consumed it in the past month," said the 700-page report by the EU drugs agency EMCDDA. "An estimated one in five European adults have tried it at some time in their lives."

The study, published on the UN's International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, calls for neither legalisation of the so-called soft drug nor seeks to have its use punished even more harshly than it currently is in many EU states.