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).
“No kidding. I actually had one tell me he’d been smoking pot for 20 years and he hadn’t become addicted in all those years. True story.”
If you enjoy eating oranges or reading FR daily, it does not make you physically addicted.
Met hundreds of people that have smoked cannabis daily for decades and can stop cold turkey when traveling to places where it is not available. You do not feel any withdrawal. Worst case, they may have a harder time sleeping for a few days but that is easily avoided with some light exercize.
Not happening with coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and Rx pills. If you use these substances daily, you’ll feel dead on the first day of sobriety.
I used to smoke 1-2 packs a day and coffee every couple hours. I would get shakes/headaches if I didn’t have a cig/coffee for 4-6 hours. Horribly addictive but legal...
For many, alcohol is not the problem. It is the solution to their problems. As you say.
It does not end well.
Thank you so much for the testimony. FRiends
As it becomes more legal, countless hard working, responsible professionals who happen to enjoy a plant on their own time are being HEARD!
My experience is that people who smoke pot habitually are blind to what happens to them. It becomes the new normal to them. That’s why they hit it the minute they wake up. Wake and bake.
The worst thing is that they justify it. Even alcoholics think they should probably stop.
I know several Wake and Bake folks and all of them smoke it. They don’t try to reduce the harm to their lungs. All of them drive while stoned because there is no “not stoned” period.
Baloney, I know many successful highly intelligent people in their 80’s and 90’s who never transitioned to hard core drugs. Weak and susceptible people will always be there, it doesn’t mean everybody else is the same. Yes there are some people who should stay away from it, but not ALL.
When it comes to pot, alcohol, cigs and gambling, politicians are on the tax train and that’s a stronger addiction than the drugs themselves.
They ain’t gettin’ off that train.
So you might as well plan around that reality.
:-)
You can’t argue with prohibitionists not jack-boot lickers.
:-)
Surely you’ve noticed that as smoking numbers decline the taxes keep going up to make up the difference in revenue.
If the remaining 16% of the population suddenly quit smoking the panic among politicians would be epic. And alcohol, pot and gambling would get a lot more expensive.
It has nothing to do with anything being ‘harmless’, worse (or ‘better’ than alcohol), nor a ‘gateway’.
It’s about STATE’S RIGHTS and the fact that the federal government has zero business in determining if it should be legal for an individual user.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I’m pretty sure Budweiser sets the gold standard as a gateway drug.
The Undisputed King of Gateways.
Must be the pot.
:-)
Okay. I’m a much bigger fan of music than of pot for your situation. I’m also much more skeptical of your solution than of music for an escape - I knew/know a huge number of people who tried your path and got lost.
“Met hundreds of people that have smoked cannabis daily for decades and can stop cold turkey when traveling to places where it is not available.”
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Faulty logic. Drunks can’t get booze in dry counties but, like druggies, they’ll grab their kick as soon as they can. Obviously a person has to stop (whatever) if they can’t get it. It’s like claiming somebody stranded in the desert stopped drinking water “cold turkey”.
“can stop cold turkey”
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That’s one of the phrases - “I can quit anytime I want!” - that I wish I had the proverbial nickel for every time it’s been said.
This is my second decade on FR, and I've long since discovered that the pot / WoD threads are the best place to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to conservatism.
That's the beautiful thing about life: it's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. I'm sorry that the people you know got lost along the path, but that doesn't mean everyone does, nor does it mean most people do.
The best thing about this country used to be that you were free to live your life how you saw fit, and I was free to live mine the way I saw fit. Do you like living in a neighborhood of nosy neighbors?
Is he smoking everyday for 20 years or only occasionally?
As a young adult I would smoke pretty much every weekend until I was 25 (1985). After we passed the laws here in Washington State in 2012 I started smoking again. I smoke probably 3-5 times per year. Does that make me addicted? I also don’t drink. Consuming either one of these takes personal responsibility.
Sorry, I didn’t bring smoking into the mix here.
“I smoke probably 3-5 times per year.”
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Good for you, a pack should last you at least for years then - which at today’s cig prices (I remember when a pack was 20 cents) makes it at least a cheap vice, at least.
MIC DROP!
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