Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
Newsletter January 10, 2019 Vol. #5 Issue #1
Marijuana Is More Dangerous Than You Think
By
Alex Berenson THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Updated Jan. 4, 2019 2:19 p.m. ET
Over the past 30 years, a shrewd and expensive lobbying campaign has made Americans more tolerant of marijuana. In November 2018, Michigan became the 10th state to legalize recreational cannabis use; New Jersey and others may soon follow. Already, more than 200 million Americans live in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. Yet even as marijuana use has become more socially acceptable, psychiatrists and epidemiologists have reached a consensus that it presents more serious risks than most people realize.
Contrary to the predictions of both advocates and opponents, legalization hasn’t led to a huge increase in people using the drug casually. About 15% of Americans used cannabis at least once in 2017, up from 10% in 2006, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. By contrast, almost 70% of Americans had an alcoholic drink in the past year.
But the number of Americans who use cannabis heavily is soaring. In 2006, about 3 million Americans reported using the drug at least 300 times a year, the standard for daily use. By 2017, that number had increased to 8 million—approaching the 12 million Americans who drank every day. Put another way, only one in 15 drinkers consumed alcohol daily; about one in five marijuana users used cannabis that often.
And they are consuming cannabis that is far more potent than ever before, as measured by the amount of THC it contains. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the chemical responsible for the drug’s psychoactive effects. In the 1970s, most marijuana contained less than 2% THC. Today, marijuana routinely contains 20-25% THC, thanks to sophisticated farming and cloning techniques and to the demand of users to get a stronger high more quickly. In states where cannabis is legal, many users prefer extracts that are nearly pure THC.
Cannabis advocates often argue that the drug can’t be as neurotoxic as studies suggest because otherwise Western countries would have seen population-wide increases in psychosis alongside rising marijuana use. In reality, accurately tracking psychosis cases is impossible in the U.S. The government carefully tracks diseases such as cancer with central registries, but no such system exists for schizophrenia or other severe mental illnesses.
Some population-level data does exist, though. Research from Finland and Denmark, two countries that track mental illness more accurately, shows a significant increase in psychosis since 2000, following an increase in cannabis use. And last September, a large survey found a rise in serious mental illness in the U.S. too. In 2017, 7.5% of young adults met the criteria for serious mental illness, double the rate in 2008.
Vaping sent this teenager into rehab. His parents blame Juul's heavy nicotine dose.
By Lauren Dunn, Maggie Fox and Catie Beck
Luka Kinard knew his vaping habit was out of control when it started costing him $150 a week.
“I was selling my clothes,” Kinard, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, said. “I would get shoes, sell them, go out get cheap shoes, sell them. I was doing anything and everything to get money.”
His parents noticed when his grades started plummeting.
“He went from being a straight-A student to an F student,” Luka’s mother, Kelly Kinard, said. “(It was) a very rapid decline in grades. His behavior became explosive. He was very angry and it just wasn’t him.” Luka stopped his boy scouting activities, stopped fishing and spent all his time locked away in his room. He was vaping.
Luka is part of what the Food and Drug Administration and the Surgeon General call an epidemic of e-cigarette use. And, as with most teens who are taking up the habit, it was the slender, easy-to-conceal Juul device that really got him hooked.
Luka was hooked in a way that doctors never noticed before with regular cigarettes. “The flavor was better than the taste of a cigarette. Also the buzz was a lot better,” he said. But it was a pricey habit.
“When I started spending $17 every four days or every day it was getting to a problem,” he said. “I realized (I was spending) $150 on pods in a week, and I noticed like this was getting out of control.”
What brought matters to a head was when he had a seizure. “He was at his girlfriend's house and an ambulance was called and he ended up in at the emergency room,” Kelly Kinard said. She knew it was the Juuling that had done it.
“We followed up with the pediatrician, cardiologist and neurologist, and we couldn't get anyone to listen to us when we told them the seizure was preceded by Juuling,” she said. “I found on the internet that it should be treated like a substance abuse issue. That helped when I called the insurance company and told them we need a referral for a substance abuse treatment.”
The High Point, N.C. teen ended up spending 40 days in an addiction rehabilitation program before he was able to kick his habit.
Luka Kinard, 15, of High Point NC, went through 40 days of rehabilitation therapy to help him kick a nicotine addiction fueled by e-cigarette use.Courtesy Kinard familyThis makes sense to Dr. Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Harvard Medical School.
“We've seen a real influx in the number of phone calls that we're getting for kids who need substance use evaluations and, remarkably, we're seeing a big increase in the number of kids who are coming in specifically to be evaluated for nicotine and Juuling problems,” Levy told NBC News.
Just the facts: A .05 BAC law prevents deaths and injuries on our roads
The December 31 opinion piece by the American Beverage Institute (ABI) opposing a lifesaving .05 BAC law is a lesson in misinformation. ABI is attempting to discourage states from following Utah’s lead in passing this well-established safety law, but their arguments don’t stand up to good science or logic.
Let’s start the new year with solid facts that will prevent drunk driving crashes. First, a .05 BAC law is not about preventing drinking at all: It is about preventing driving when you are impaired. A .05 BAC law is highly effective because it is classic primary prevention — rather than punishing people after the fact, it discourages even high-risk, high BAC drivers (yes, drivers over .08 BAC, too) from getting behind the wheel in the first place. The majority of Americans (63 percent according to the AAA Foundation and 55 percent according to the Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute) support this sensible policy because the majority of Americans agree that 10,000 drunk driving deaths per year is tragic and preventable.
I am amazed that anyone who cares about preventing drunk driving crashes would question the effectiveness of a .05 BAC law, especially in the face of evidence from the NTSB, the National Academies of Science, and dozens of scientific studies showing a general deterrence effect on the driving population. This research indicates that lowering the drunk driving per se level from .08 percent to .05 percent BAC reduces crash fatality risk across the entire BAC spectrum by preventing both high and low BAC drivers from getting behind the wheel. When implemented in states alongside well-publicized marketing and enforcement campaigns, a .05 BAC law can prevent at least 1,500 impaired driving fatalities and thousands of injuries every year in our nation.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the NTSB have both recommended that every state pass a .05 BAC law because of the clear evidence that this policy would reduce drunk driving crashes.
At the NTSB, we fly at a moment’s notice to the scenes of terrible transportation disasters and we gather the facts in order to prevent these tragedies from happening again. The fact is that a .05 law would save 1,500 lives every year nationwide and it would do so immediately, by separating drinking from driving.
Even though a .05 BAC law’s greatest benefit may be reducing the number of high BAC drivers on the road, we know that between .05-.079 BAC, the risk of being in a single vehicle crash is still 7 times greater than without alcohol. At a .05 BAC, drivers already have reduced coordination, reduced ability to track moving objects, and difficulty steering — all unquestionably critical skills needed to drive responsibly in order to keep our families and communities safe.
Wood County Prevention Coalition Community Meeting
Friday, Mar 22, 2019, 08:30 AM
Wood County Educational Services, Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, USA
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
About Us
Our Vision: Helping youth be drug-free, productive and responsible citizens.
Our Mission: We are a coalition of compassionate community members working together to coordinate high quality programs for the prevention of youth substance abuse in Wood County.
Email: mkarna@wcesc.org
Website: wcprevention.org
Location: 1867 Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
Phone: (419)-354-9010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCPCoalition
Twitter: @woodpccoalition