Pubdate: Tuesday, March 31, 1998 Source: Reuters Editors note: Please send any items that you see in print on this 'study' to expert LTE writers are ready to respond, they just need the targets! U.S. STUDY: MARIJUANA IS ADDICTIVE WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Troubled teen-agers who use marijuana can quickly become dependent on the drug, Colorado researchers reported Tuesday. More than two-thirds of teens referred for treatment by social service or criminal justice agencies complained of withdrawal symptoms when they stopped using marijuana, Dr. Thomas Crowley of the University of Colorado and colleagues reported. ``This study provides additional important data to better illustrate that marijuana is a dangerous drug that can be addictive,'' Dr. Alan Leshner, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which paid for the study, said in a statement. ``It also identifies the devastating impact marijuana dependence can have on young people and highlights the fact that many both need and want help dealing with their addiction,'' he added. Crowley's team at the university's Addiction Research and Treatment Service studied interviews, medical examinations and social histories of 165 boys and 64 girls aged 13 to 19. More than 80 percent of the boys and 60 percent of the girls were clinically dependent on marijuana. When asked, 97 percent of the teens said they still used marijuana even after realizing it had become a problem for them. Eighty-five percent admitted their habit interfered with driving, school, work and home life, while 77 percent said they spent ``much time'' getting, using or recovering from the effects of marijuana, according to the study, published in the jounral Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Most also said their problems started before they started using marijuana. ``About 825,000 youths were arrested and formally processed by juvenile courts in 1994,'' Crowley said in a statement. ``About 50 percent of these youths tested positive for marijuana at the time of arrest and many fit the profile of the teens in this study, making them at high risk for marijuana dependence,'' he added. ``The challenge now becomes to develop highly effective methods to treat high-risk adolescents dependent on marijuana,'' Leshner said. President Clinton's anti-drug leader Barry McCaffrey said 50,000 young people seek treatment for marijuana dependence every year. ``This important study underscores what drug treatment professionals have long recognized: that marijuana is a dangerous drug, and its use can lead to severe consequences for vulnerable young people,'' McCaffrey said in a statement. Drug abuse experts say the problem is a physical, not a moral one and say drug addicts should be treated like anyone else with a disease rather than jailed.