Pubdate: Tue, 24 Mar 2015
Source: Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Gazette
Contact: http://www.gazette.com/sections/opinion/submitletter/
Website: http://www.gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/165
Authors: Pula Davis, Wayne Laugesen, Christine Tatum
Series: Special report, 'Clearing the Haze:'

CONCERNS OVER ADOLESCENTS' USE

Much of the latest brain development science conducted around the 
world shares this bottom line: Adolescent substance use is harmful 
and a bigger deal than researchers previously thought.

"Parents don't have to accept teen drug use or the notion that drug 
use is just a part of growing up," said Dr. Christian Thurstone, an 
associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, who 
also serves as medical director of one of Colorado's largest 
adolescent substance abuse treatment programs.

Thurstone said many companies selling addictive drugs - including 
alcohol, marijuana and tobacco - are staffed with executives and 
researchers who know what he does about the science: The best way to 
develop the lifelong customers who guarantee business survival and 
boost profits is to hook people when they are young because that is 
when the brain is especially vulnerable to developing addiction. Most 
adults who struggle with addiction started their drug use as 
adolescents, he said.

Consider internal statements - publicized during the country's 
tobacco lawsuit settlements - that informed tobacco companies' 
advertising and business-development efforts:

 From Lorillard in 1970: "We have been asked by our client group to 
come up with a package design ... a design that is attractive to kids 
. While this cigarette is geared to the youth market, no attempt 
(obvious) can be made to encourage persons under 21 to smoke. The 
package design should be geared to attract the youthful eye ... not 
the ever watchful eye of the federal government."

 From R.J. Reynolds in 1973: "Realistically, if our company is to 
survive and prosper, over the long term we must get our share of the 
youth market."

 From Brown & Williamson in 1980: "The studies ... of young smokers' 
attitudes towards 'addiction' ... contain multiple references to how 
very young smokers at first believe they cannot become addicted, only 
to later discover, to their regret, that they are."

Companies offer the drug in familiar candy shapes and bright colors, 
promoted using fashion labels, media and events popular with youths. 
In doing so, they follow Big Tobacco's playbook, said Bob Doyle, 
executive director of the Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance.

"Marijuana is shaping up to be Big Tobacco 2.0," Doyle said. "Only 
this time, the consequences stand to be even worse."

Among the findings about pot use during adolescence:

Heavy use of the drug starting in adolescence predicts up to an 
8-point drop in IQ from age 13 to age 38, according to research 
published in 2012 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 
The study findings suggest the drop in IQ is permanent and 
dose-dependent - meaning the more marijuana used, the greater the drop in IQ.

Adolescent exposure to marijuana doubles the risk of developing 
psychosis in adulthood - which includes seeing and hearing things 
that aren't there and maintaining fixed, false beliefs not shared by 
the larger community, according to research published in Lancet in 
2009. This finding first was reported in 1988 and has been replicated 
at least five times with studies controlling for dozens of possible, 
confounding variables - and all yielding similar results.

Adolescent exposure to marijuana predicts a doubling in the odds of 
having an anxiety disorder in adulthood, according to research 
published in 2013 in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction.

Adolescents who use marijuana are at least twice as likely to go on 
to use other substances, compared with those who do not use the drug, 
according to research published in Addiction.

Science has shown for many years that the brain achieves its maximum 
size and weight at about age 6. What researchers didn't know until 
the start of the 21st century is that the brain fully matures around 
the age of 25.

During adolescence, the brain changes rapidly. While under this 
important construction, it is especially vulnerable to harm from 
substance use, said Thurstone, who directs the medical training of 
physicians completing fellowships in addiction psychiatry at CU. To 
underscore how easily teens become addicted to substances, he 
provides a quick rundown of peer-reviewed research published in 
respected medical journals:

One in six people younger than 18 who try marijuana becomes addicted 
to it - compared with one in 11 adults. These rates were calculated 
decades ago, when marijuana was much less potent.

It's the sequence of brain development that makes adolescents more 
vulnerable to addiction than adults. The reward circuit matures in 
early adolescence. But the part of the brain that helps us plan, 
organize and contemplate consequences develops in the mid-20s.

"So for about 12 years, kids are biologically off to the races with 
fully functioning gas pedals and no brakes," Thurstone said. "The 
imbalance could be a good thing if it encourages teens and young 
adults to take some risks - such as leaving home and finding a mate - 
but it presents big challenges that should underscore for all of us 
that adolescents are not merely little adults and that the ages of 18 
and 21 aren't somehow going to make drug use all right."

[sidebar]

Day 3: YOUTHFUL ADDICTION

Protecting our children was a priority as the public headed to the 
polls to vote on Amendment 64. The most recent research on adolescent 
brain development and related addiction studies indicates this is 
more important than ever thought before. Adolescent exposure to 
marijuana is most troubling because young users are more vulnerable 
to addiction throughout their lives. Post-legalization trends in 
Colorado raise concerns because regulation has fallen short of the 
promises made by the state. The increasing rate of pot use also is a 
concern of employers.

Contact the Gazette:

Email:  Call: 719.636.0291

About the series

The reporting team: editorial board members Pula Davis and Wayne 
Laugesen and local reporter Christine Tatum.

After the first year of recreational pot sales, The Gazette takes a 
comprehensive look at the unintended consequences of legalizing sales 
and use of recreational marijuana.

Day 1: Colorado has a fragile scheme for regulating legal marijuana 
and implementing a state drug prevention strategy.

Day 2: One of the suppositions about legalizing pot was that 
underground sales would be curtailed, but officials say there is 
evidence of a thriving black market.

Day 3: One teen's struggle to overcome his marijuana addiction shows 
how devastating the effects of the drug can be for younger, more 
vulnerable users.

Day 4: Amid the hoopla about recreational marijuana sales, the 
medical marijuana industry is flourishing and has its own set of 
complicated concerns.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom