Pubdate: Fri, 24 Oct 2014
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Charlie Fidelman
Page: A9

MARIJUANA RESEARCH ON TEENAGERS LEADS TO FILM

As part of a health research project, nursing professor-turned
filmmaker Barbara Moffat was interviewing teens who smoked cigarettes.
But they were more interested in talking about pot.

"They said, 'Why don't you ask us about marijuana? It's much easier to
get,'" Moffat recalled Thursday from her Vancouver office at the
University of British Columbia.

Bolstered by a five-year federal government grant to study youth and
cannabis in three major areas, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and the
Kootenay region of B.C., Moffat's team turned their research results
into a film. Cycles will be making its Quebec debut (with French
subtitles) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Friday.

Just like films that warn viewers that no animals were hurt during
filming, Cycles opens with a note that real marijuana was not used.
It's all fake weed, Moffat said, and even then some of the actors did
not inhale.

Cycles is a fictional drama about the spiralling negative effects of
pot on some teens, but Moffat is quick to note that it's not imbued
with scare tactics. There are no preachy facts or figures, she said.

"We know that doesn't work (with youth) because they don't buy that,"
she said.

Moffat's team developed a script, workshopped it with high school
students, and then had young actors improvise and refine the dialogue.

Cycles will be shown with an award-winning short animated British
film, Angels and Ghosts, as part of the Au Contraire Film Festival
about mental health being held at the museum.

The screenings, which include a personal video by Susanne Serres, will
be followed by a discussion on cannabis and psychosis, which is
described as a loss of contact with reality.

Following an episode of psychosis and hospitalization, Serres created
her video inspired by the treatment she got at JAP, an outreach mental
health clinic of the Centre hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal
for youth with psychosis.

Serres depicts a young man with visual and auditory hallucinations,
confusion, delirium, bizarre thoughts and the ensuing anxiety and
panic attacks.

A recent review of 120 studies on cannabis and teenage brain
development by researchers in Montreal and New York in August 2013
suggest that early pot use can interfere with the development of the
adolescent brain.

Moffat's data showed youth felt there was a dearth of information
about marijuana use, she said. Recreational pot is illegal but
marijuana for medicinal purposes has a quasi-legal status.

"If they're caught, it's criminal, yet medical marijuana is
sanctioned," she said. "They know people who use but it's not talked
about openly. They did not have adults to turn to."

Similarly, adults felt ill-equipped to talk to young people," she
said. "Often, there's a silencing. And young people interpreted it as
'not caring.'"

Cycles might make it seem that a lot of people smoke or that pot use
is desirable, Moffat said. "But we're not endorsing it. We're enticing
the viewer to explore decision-making. It's a vehicle to start a
conversation on the role of marijuana in their lives."
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MAP posted-by: Matt