Posted on 11/30/2018 7:03:52 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A new study looking at alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among adolescents gives some interesting and helpful conclusions. Well, helpful conclusions if people will be willing to remove their cultural blinders concerning marijuana. Since the politically and culturally popular thing to do is to extol the virtues of the recreational use of marijuana, the study's sharp gateway-drug implications will most likely be a warning that is derided and unheeded.
Frankly, I don't really care if people smoke weed or not. To be clear, if asked, I'll warn against it. What bugs me, though, is that many who do choose to smoke weed deceive themselves (and others) about marijuana's potential for harm.
When I worked in a substance awareness program targeting eighth-graders, my co-workers and I could predict the pushback we would receive from the students: marijuana isn't addictive... marijuana doesn't cause any real, long-term, negative effects, blah, blah, blah.
While it's true that marijuana doesn't bring the same negative effects as, say, methamphetamine, it's not true that marijuana is completely devoid of any negative effects. For starters, it is addictive. Substances don't have to be physically addictive to be addictive. As my colleagues and I would tell the protesting students, shopping can be addictive.
A negative effect that comes from ingesting marijuana that many users (and non-users) scoff at is the drug's potential to be a gateway drug. However, the study linked to above concludes, "The implications of the more prominent role of marijuana in the early stages of drug use sequences are important to continue tracking."
The twenty-year study concluded that while cigarette and alcohol use among adolescents has decreased, marijuana use among adolescents has remained basically the same. What's interesting is that "the traditional gateway sequence is changing, with marijuana increasingly accounting for the first substance used among adolescents."
The study also acknowledges that adolescents who smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol have a greater risk of turning to marijuana. The authors of the study write:
Those who do engage in alcohol and cigarette use are increasingly a high-risk group for marijuana use. National data among adults with reconstructed life histories has demonstrated similar findings among today’s cohorts of cigarette users, in that they are also more likely to have psychiatric disorders and other drug disorders compared with previous cohorts of smokers ( Talati et al., 2016, 2013). Such findings are in line with hypotheses about ‘hardening’ of drug users.
The bad news for those adolescents who begin with marijuana as well as for those who are in a high-risk group for marijuana use due to their cigarette or alcohol use is that:
Marijuana initiation may also affect subsequent drug use through similar biological mechanisms that have been proposed for other substances; emerging evidence from animal models suggests that THC exposure early in adolescence influences reward sensitivity to other drugs including nicotine ( Dinieri and Hurd, 2012; Panlilio et al., 2013; Pistis et al., 2004), and that adult marijuana use who initiated in adolescence have impairments in memory and prefrontal as well hippocampal volume ( Batalla et al., 2013; Filbey and Yezhuvath, 2013). Existing epidemiological data suggest that marijuana use increases the risk of subsequent cigarette initiation, supporting the hypothesis that marijuana could be causally associated with subsequent polysubstance use ( Nguyen et al., 2018).
My friends who smoke pot are conservatives who own businesses and vacation homes.
If we are to ban anything that could be addictive and/or bad for the health then we will have to ban:
Alcohol, tobacco, butter, sugar, chocolate, coffee, marbled steaks, especially cooked on a grill, some would say our firearms, cars, real fireplace fires, salt, bread, rice, pasta, ad nauseam. Oh, and that dang GMO corn. Try to claw the Fritos out of my hands!
There is genuine withdrawal from coffee and cigarettes. Have not observed withdrawal with pot. Lack of steak with butter and salt cooked over charcoal would drive me nuts. Many cannot give up huge consumption of carbohydrates. There was a study years ago that overconsumption of tofu for those not raised with it caused sponginess in the brain.
How nanny state do we want to be?
And believe it or not, I don't have a horse in the legal versus illegal pot race.
I smoke pot. But I've always bought it without a medical marijuana card or living in a locale where it's legal to buy.
I get my pot like I always have since college. I buy it from someone who sells it.
Not from a store or a dispensary or a vape shop. But from a guy who knows a guy, who knows a guy. It's readily available.
So it doesn't matter to me whether pot is legal or not. I've gone 50 years without it being legal. Nothing will change for me.
True.
I mean I prefer the most annoying and brain-damaged stoner (granting the disputable points of the JBLs) to the sort of person that even begins to think that the State has any business in my neurochemistry (as long as I’m not operating a car or other dangerous machinery).
One is annoying and might eat my ice cream, the other is just a pubic hair away from an ISIS terrorist and should be beaten severely before being disenfranchised and deported.
Ditto! LIVE FREE OR DIE ***
Thank you for your thoughts. Perhaps my post was not clear. I was not making any statement about the safety or effects of marijuana. I was speaking to the rationale leading to taking that very first toke of marijuana can similarly be used to move to other drugs.
If you say it won’t hurt anything to try pot, I believe that it becomes easier to convince oneself to do harder drugs using the same rational.
Just like cold fusion, we've been trying for years to prove this, but still can't. Really, it is JUST around the corner.
Just like the flying car.
And the hoverboard.
And the quick charging battery.
Pot is dumb to smoke, but including it in the same category as heroin and cocaine only undermines any argument for its continued vilification. Even those two seriously harmful drugs *DO* have their legitimate uses, just like nicotine and alcohol do, and booze and tobacco are still legal aren't they? Despite the verifiable damage to which they contribute, correct?
I personally know several people that medical marijuana helps. Anecdotal or not, it's still rational to include this kind of information isn't it? You claim the *rational* ground when those posing your own argument openly admit they cannot prove anything they assert.
Psychobabble created to impart the info simplified, for the truly uneducated— you understand that notion?
You are wrong, FRiend- am not some talking rehab former user “therapist”, but clinical researcher, genomics. Would cite studies to you from that field, but they are behind a significant paywall to access them, and, judging from your comment here you would not be able to understand the science or the verbage.
Try this: Genomic mapping has provided marker regions of DNA in individuals whose documented schizophrenia are linked. These are correlated in statistically significant numbers of individuals with the same marker regions. This is work primarily done in the UK. That is to say— people, large numbers of them, are highly susceptible to marijuana/THC and other cannabinoids (not CBD sub groups however) linked to time and frequency of habitual use. In still growing brains, say of high school age youths up to age 26-30— the brain cell changes are permanent. Secondary study group, again UK, has been looked at of females presenting with newly diagnosed bipolar crises, after age 30, with co-morbidity factors of thyroid disorder, alcoholism,other addictive agents/opiods and stimulant abuse ruled out. 60% of the 2% general bipolar population in the UK have cannabis use associated in the individuals. Lot more work on the population studies needs to be done, but the biochemical clinical markers have been elucidated.
Decipher that. Bye.
“If you say it won’t hurt anything to try pot, I believe that it becomes easier to convince oneself to do harder drugs using the same rational.”
No. Someone using a very safe drug is not going to want to try something “hard” like opiods. They all hear of what happens to people using opiods. With Cannabis, many people know succesful friends who use cannabis daily and it is clearly not damaging them. They are doing better than drinkers. Hell, many people know others who owe their success to cannabis. It helps people rest after stressful days and gives them creativity when they are stuck on a problem.
Succesful people open to intoxicants may try some Rx stimulants or oral street drugs like MDMA. These things are about as safe as alcohol and 99% of users do not ruin their lives with it.
The people abusing hard dangerous drugs generally have mental issues. Either genetic or something terrifying that happened in their lives. It is a step toward suicide and a cry for help. Placing the sick in prison with violent animals is one of the most shameful things ever done by modern society
So all the people that are on hard drugs and say they got their start with marijuana, were wasting their time. They should have just gone for the real stuff from the start?
I know a lot if pot users that never moved on to harder drugs I know a lot of alcohol users that are meth and pill freaks
My.
GOD.
Now that's a warrior.
“So all the people that are on hard drugs and say they got their start with marijuana, were wasting their time. They should have just gone for the real stuff from the start?”
People generally start with what is safest, cheapest and most available. A plant that grows like a weed in every part of the globe and is ready to harvest in 3 months is why cannabis is so common and impossible to prohibit.
I’m sure the people you mentioned nearly all tried alcohol and cigarettes long before cannabis as well. Hell, it’s practically a national tradition for a dad to give a son his first beer.
Something more expensive and far more dangerous is unlikely to be tried first if a safe, cheap option is available.
There are places in southwest Asia where people start with opiates because that is cheap and available. Alcohol is banned/expensive and cannabis is not worthwhile to produce.
“Real” is all in the beholder. People are naturally curious, try things, and move to the next option until they find what works best.
Some people have lived wonderful lives, have good brain chemistry and see no need to toke something that takes them away from that. They are unlikely to take any risks and may never even try anything mind altering.
Some people were so abused or are so naturally depressed that they need anesthesia to take them away. Even when they sleep, the dreams haunt them. They keep trying until finding something like Heroin and it becomes the only way they feel “alive”. Living as a beggar on the street and staying high is preferable to feeling their normal brain chemistry.
The majority of people lie somewhere in between and can deal with daily anxieties with the help of some milder safe substances. No need for them to use something dangerous. Even though any doctor in the 50 states can easily prescribe them countless dangerous medications that are far harder than cannabis and taxpayers will cover it, the majority STILL do not take that route
I want welfare ended, period. I seem to be the only libertarian than realizes this is more important than legalizing pot or keeping alcohol legal or legalizing gambling.
So you want alcohol banned until welfare is ended.
Or else you're a hypocrite.
I want welfare ended, period.
That doesn't address my statement.
I seem to be the only libertarian than realizes this is more important than legalizing pot or keeping alcohol legal or legalizing gambling.
Maybe - or maybe other libertarians think it makes sense to expend more energy on freedom issues with a better chance of success.
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