Pubdate: Fri, 06 Jun 2014
Source: Tampa Bay Times (FL)
Copyright: 2014 St. Petersburg Times
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Note: Named the St. Petersburg Times from 1884-2011.
Author: Stephen Nohlgren, Times Staff Writer
Page: 1B

EXPERT: POT USE CAN BE HARMFUL

Marijuana's Negatives Can Include Brain Changes And IQ Loss, A Top 
Drug Official Says.

As Floridians consider whether to legalize medical marijuana, stories 
of potential benefits to patients abound. Chemicals found in pot 
clearly can alter important physiological mechanisms.

What's less clear is risk.

Pretty much any FDAA-approved medicine carries measurable risk - 
witness scary disclaimers in pharmaceutical ads.

But marijuana comes in strains with widely different chemical 
contents. Users can puff it, or eat it. They can imbibe heavily or 
lightly. Controlled, scientific studies weighing benefits against 
risks don't exist.

Amid the uncertainty, one of the nation's top drug officials has 
enlivened the marijuana debate by declaring in a prestigious 
publication that pot can be harmful.

In a review published Wednesday in the New England Journal of 
Medicine , Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug 
Abuse, outlines marijuana's negatives, based on her reading of the 
medical literature.

Short-term use can impair memory and learning, create temporary 
psychosis if taken in high doses and cause more driving accidents, 
Volkow states. Longterm use - particularly among those who start 
young - can increase the chance of permanent brain changes, addictive 
behavior, mental illness and loss of IQ.

'The popular notion seems to be that marijuana is a harmless 
pleasure," Volkow writes. But as policy shifts toward medical 
marijuana and legal recreational use, 'so will the number of persons 
for whom there will be negative health consequences." Critics of 
Florida's Amendment 2, which would write medical marijuana into the 
state Constitution, hailed the review as an important warning signal 
leading up to the Nov. 4 vote.

'The research showing the harms of marijuana use continues to pile 
up," said Calvina Fay, executive director of St. Petersburg's Save 
Our Society from Drugs. 'Some of these harms are so dramatic that 
they cannot be ignored any longer." If voters read the Volkow report 
and study the amendment's full language, Fay said, they 'will see 
that this proposed constitutional amendment is not in the best 
interest of the families and communities of this great state." United 
for Care, the amendment's sponsor, has never argued that marijuana is 
benign, said executive director Ben Pollara.

'We're just saying it is certainly not a horribly dangerous 
substance. We're just saying it should be available to really sick 
people as a tool in their regular medical treatment, if that is what 
their doctor recommends.' People do not die from too much pot, 
Pollara said. 'Look at that versus Advil and Tylenol, which we take 
on a regular basis and kills 10,000 people a year," referring to 
studies on the risks of those and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy 
group, criticized NIDA 'for prioritizing politics over science.' The 
IQ study has been discredited, he said. As for addiction, he said, 
studies have indicated that pot withdrawal is no worse than getting 
off caffeine.

Particularly troubling aspects of Volkow's review involved young 
people who start using pot early, and smoke heavily.

Still-developing brains are more vulnerable to long-term exposure. 
Several studies indicate that youngsters who smoke a lot have fewer 
connections between brain cells.

NIDA did not respond to a Tampa Bay Times request for data supporting 
that statement.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom