Pubdate: Thu, 22 Nov 2012
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Authors: Jim Crittenden & Susan Tapert
Note: Crittenden is a project specialist with the San Diego County 
Office of Education; Tapert, Ph.D., is acting chief, psychology 
service, VA San Diego Healthcare System and UCSD professor of psychiatry.

YOUTHS' HIGHER RATE OF POT USE MATTERS

In the midst of rapid cultural and technological change, there isn't 
much that has stayed the same since the 1960s. Marijuana use among 
youth and the research practices to study its effects on the brain 
are no exception. Current methods to study the drug's influence on 
adolescents are allowing health professionals and researchers the 
ability to understand its impacts.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego find that youth 
may be more susceptible than adults to marijuana's neurological 
effects because young people's brains are still developing. They 
discovered that among adolescents, marijuana use is associated with 
verbal learning disadvantages, attention problems, short-term memory 
loss, difficulty with problem-solving and trouble exercising 
inhibition. The studies also show that youth marijuana users require 
more brain-processing power to complete tasks than nonusers. The 
studies utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging that measures 
brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, allowing 
researchers to study varying patterns in the brain when tests are 
given to those using marijuana and those who do not.

In another recent study, reported to the National Academy of 
Sciences, researchers examined the effects of marijuana use on brain 
development among 1,000 people in New Zealand. Those who started 
using marijuana before the age of 18 experienced a significant drop 
in their IQ score that persisted 25 years later. They also discovered 
that the more people smoked marijuana, the greater the reduction in 
their IQ. This is not good news for a generation that is going to 
have to achieve advanced degrees in order to stay competitive in a 
struggling economy and a highly competitive global market.

These studies are crucial in understanding how marijuana use 
interferes with normal adolescent development of the brain so that we 
can identify, at this critical time, those interventions that are 
successful in preventing first-time use.

This research is especially troubling to those who work closely with 
youth. Many educators have seen an increase in first-time use and 
youth are accessing marijuana at younger ages. Recent surveys suggest 
that high school students are more likely to smoke marijuana than 
cigarettes and that regular marijuana use is at a 10-year high among 
high school seniors, according to the University of Michigan's 
"Monitoring the Future" survey.

Given the health consequences of marijuana use, it's ironic that 
high-school students in San Diego County, ninth- and 11th-graders 
perceive marijuana to be less harmful than cigarettes, according to 
the California Healthy Kids Survey, San Diego County, 2009-11.

Rather than conveying an ambivalent attitude toward marijuana use 
among young people, communities need to educate their youth about the 
ways that marijuana affects their health.

Statistics point to an increase in marijuana consumption among our 
youth and 3 out of 5 high school seniors report that marijuana is 
"fairly easy" or "somewhat easy" to get, according to the California 
Healthy Kids Survey, San Diego County, 2010.

This upward trend, especially in San Diego County, may be blamed on a 
number of contributing factors. The continuous legal debate over 
marijuana legalization, the proliferation of dispensaries and 
glorification of marijuana in our culture may all be playing a part 
in these higher rates.

According to the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring 
Project (2010), marijuana's average potency more than tripled in the 
last two decades. Higher levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), 
marijuana's primary psychoactive ingredient, are particularly 
troubling in light of recent studies showing that developing 
adolescent brains are particularly vulnerable to the effects of 
marijuana exposure.

This is reminiscent of the tobacco issue, when many young people said 
they did not know the long-term risks of smoking. Yet the long-term 
health implications of smoking marijuana on a regular basis are 
coming to light today. We know that in 2009 the California Office of 
Environmental Protection Agency added marijuana smoke to the 
Proposition 65 list as a cancer-causing carcinogen.

As parents, educators and health professionals, we have an obligation 
to maintain safe and drug-free environments so that children can make 
healthier decisions when so much is at stake. The current research 
has to be made available in a way for the kids and their parents to 
understand. These are important times in young people's lives when 
certain decisions made once may have lifelong negative impacts on their futures.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom