Posted on 06/17/2019 9:30:06 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
The first two states to legalize recreational marijuana are starting to grapple with teenagers' growing use of highly potent pot, even as both boost the industry and reap huge tax windfalls from its sales.
Though the legal purchase age is 21 in Colorado and Washington, parents, educators and physicians say youths are easily getting hold of edibles infused with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component that causes a high, and concentrates such as "shatter," a brittle, honey-colored substance that is heated and then inhaled through a special device.
Each poses serious risks to adolescents' physical and mental health.
"Underage kids have unbelievable access to nuclear-strength weed," said Andrew Brandt, a Boulder, Colo., software executive whose son got hooked.
Calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms have risen. In the Denver area, visits to Children's Hospital Colorado facilities for treatment of cyclic vomiting, paranoia, psychosis and other acute cannabis-related symptoms jumped to 777 in 2015, from 161 in 2005.
The increase was most notable in the years following legalization of medical sales in 2009 and retail use in 2014.
"Horrible things are happening to kids," said psychiatrist Libby Stuyt, who treats teens in southwestern Colorado and has studied the health impacts of high-potency marijuana. "I see increased problems with psychosis, with addiction, with suicide, with depression and anxiety."
The limited scientific research to date shows that earlier and more frequent use of high-THC cannabis puts adolescents at greater jeopardy of substance use disorders, mental health issues and poor school performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Gee, who didn’t see this coming? /s
Underage kids have unbelievable access to nuclear-strength weed...
Anyone know where I can score some?
Color me stunned. /sarc
Move to a state with legal weed.
Cort conceded afterward that his talks with young people are often the hardest. They think they know so much more than they do, he said, and don’t realize how vulnerable they are in a world of ever-more-powerful pot.
“We are holding on to a construct of marijuana which today is antiquated,” he said. “Ten years from now, there’s going to be a reckoning.”
How is that genie to be put back into the bottle? Did such states have an escape route lined up?
Thank you democrats. . .if they don’t kill em in womb then they provide an easy way to ruin or end their (teens’) lives. IMHO I believe we have a demonic force that knows their days are numbered . . .the demons are in a frenzy. I had a congressman tell me that in one state the democrat side of the isle was actually hissing uncontrollably and some a left during a Holy Spirit-led prayer.
I sure didn’t
I mean, no one ever bought liquor for us under the age of legality
In CA all you see are commercials saying Big Tobacco is targeting Children by promoting Vaping (don’t ask me).
They also have Ads attacking Big Tobacco about secondhand Smoke (using CGI) to give the smoke some sort of power where it can direct itself through the open windows of a Child’s room.
Last time I checked, people who use Weed smoke it and produce secondhand smoke as a result.
Sucking Hot Smoke into your Lungs, whether Tobacco, Weed or Crack cannot be good for you.
Teens have always used pot, among all sorts of others drugs, whether they are illegal or not.
And in 10 years, when millions of kids are addicted....The government will say....oh no....an epidemic....just like e cigarettes, patches, gum, opioids etc etc.
But they will be in a deep steaming pile of Obama if they are caught with tobacco products!
You know, maybe just maybe the old white men who ran this country in the 1930s were correct about this harmful, worthless drug and were right to try to prohibit it. We’re talking about a generation that built the bomb and won the war. Maybe just maybe they weren’t stupid.
Some of these kids will get through this period of experimentation, while others are going to be broken spiritually, lacking ambition or optimism.
It’s always been this way with drugs such as marijuana.
Now, the risk is far higher because many strains are highly potent. Very different than what was available back some 40 years ago.
Well, duh! Did anyone think legalization wouldn’t result in more teen and overall use and auto fatalities? Happens every time its tried.
They weren’t stupid. The Mexican Revolution saw an influx of Mexican immigrants whose means of intoxication was marijuana.
It was prejudice and the fear of Mexicans that led to its ban.
Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a lust for blood, and gave its users superhuman strength. Rumors spread that Mexicans were distributing this killer weed to unsuspecting American schoolchildren.
https://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-illegal
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