If there is one thing that almost every citizen can agree on
is that they don’t want children using marijuana. It would be safe to assume
that most people also wouldn’t want children using alcohol or prescription
drugs. As far as hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth, etc, we can assume the
public would frown upon offering them to children as well. It would also be
hard to argue that marijuana is the most dangerous of the aforementioned
drugs. So why is it that anti marijuana
ads have been increasingly taking over the airwaves? Here are a few headlines
for the NEW REEFER MADNESS.
Research warns that
the effects of marijuana on child development are unknown.
The same is true for
other medications used to fight pain and nausea that are currently given to children
with cancer, as well as for powerful antipsychotic drugs that are used in long
term treatment of childhood mental illnesses. Opioid drugs like morphine and
Oxycontin, which are sometimes used to treat the severe pain that accompanies
life-threatening cancer and other diseases, for example, can cause overdoses. When
it comes to alcohol consumption among youth the negative effects are clear. An
American Medical Society report shows adolescent drinkers scored worse than
non-users on vocabulary, visual-spatial and memory tests and were more likely
to perform poorly in school, fall behind and experience social problems,
depression, suicidal thoughts and violence.
Laxer Marijuana Laws
Linked to Increase in Kids’ Accidental Poisonings
Nearly 1,400 pediatric patients under 12 were evaluated at
the Colo. emergency room for unintentional ingestion for this study. Prior to
Sept. 30, 2009, zero of 790 accidental poisoning cases were for marijuana.
After Oct. 1, 2009, the number spiked to 14 of 588 cases, with seven of them
caused by eating medical marijuana products. Kids who ate the edible pot
products showed symptoms like extreme sleepiness, respiratory distress and
difficulty walking. Yet even though children feel the effects of pot more
strongly, the treatment is the same for them as it is for the adults. According
to Dr. George Wang, a clinical instructor in pediatrics at Children's Hospital
Colorado and the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine, the only thing
doctors can do for a child who has ingested their parents’ pot prescription is
to simply wait until it wears off. “They don’t need more than a day or two of
hospitalization,” he said. “There were no deaths or lasting side effects.”
Researchers from
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati
analyzed national poison control center data on 544,133 children who had
visited an emergency department after an accidental medication poisoning. Prescription
drugs accounted for 55 percent of the drug-poisoning visits to the emergency
room, but represented nearly three quarters of serious injuries. In fact, 43
percent of the children admitted to the hospital after accidentally ingesting a
prescription drug ended up in intensive care. The biggest culprits were opioid
drugs for pain relief, like oxycodone and codeine; sedatives, like muscle
relaxers and sleep aids; and prescription heart drugs. The truth is that your
child is 98% more likely to accidentally ingest prescription medication than
marijuana.
Marijuana Has no
Medicinal Benefits
Although numerous states have adapted medical marijuana
laws, anti-marijuana groups insist that there is no medicinal value to
marijuana. These activists refer to Federal drug laws that still classify
marijuana as a schedule 1 drug to support their view. We all know that
marijuana offers relief for many adults, but new studies now show that cannabis
can help children in some circumstances as well. Rather than smoke the drug,
children who are prescribed medical marijuana take a form of the herb that
hardly resembles the mixture of dried leaves, stems and seeds typically smoked
by marijuana users. Instead, the drug is
infused into butters or breads, or concentrated in liquid form, called a
"tincture," that can be placed under the tongue for more rapid
effect. "I can't guarantee it's going to do anything," said Dr.
Lester Grinspoon, a retired physician and professor at Harvard Medical School.
“But I can tell you it isn't going to do harm. [Marijuana] is remarkably
non-toxic." An owner of a clinic in California, that
authorizes patients to use the drug, said staff members have treated as many as
50 patients age 14 to 18 that had A.D.H.D.
Their doctors maintain that it is also safer than methylphenidate
(Ritalin), the stimulant prescription drug most often used to treat A.D.H.D.
That drug has documented potential side effects including insomnia, depression,
facial tics and stunted growth. Children suffering from seizures have experienced
amazing results when using cannabis. Dr. Seth Ammerman, a pediatrician and specialist
in adolescent substance addiction, acknowledges anecdotal reports that show
remarkable turnarounds. But, like many scared doctors around the country, he
warns that a parent is "flying by the seat of his or her pants" when
it comes to treating children with marijuana. We don't know if these treatments
are going to work for every given child, or every given adolescent. "I do
think there's potential for these cannabinoids to be medically relevant, but at
this time we don't know the risks," says Ammerman. Among
the medical marijuana states that release age related data, Colorado has 45
registered users under age 18, Oregon reports 56 child users and Montana has
55.
Marijuana is an
Addictive Gateway Drug
Whether marijuana is a “gateway drug” is a source
of some contention even among anti-marijuana groups. One study by
Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, found that
“children who use marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than
non-marijuana users.” But Dr. Alan J. Budney, a professor of
Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Vermont, sees the “gateway”
concept as confusing. He says that “99 percent of cocaine or heroin users
have smoked pot. So in some ways it is a precursor. The other side of
that is that 85 percent of people who smoke pot only smoke pot.” Yet if
85 percent don’t graduate to harder drugs that means that 15 percent (or one out
of seven) do. Adversaries claim that experimenting with marijuana won’t
necessarily lead to harder drugs, but it’s an experiment with an unacceptably
high degree of risk. It can also be known that over 99% of hard drug users have
drunk water and used an over the counter medication prior to their succession
to real drugs. Whether teenagers who
smoked pot will use other illicit drugs as young adults has more to do with
life factors such as employment status and stress, according to the new
research. In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other
illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used marijuana. As
far as being addictive, most users will never experience any withdraw symptoms
when quitting marijuana. In rare instances, heavy users have noticed
physiological withdraws similar to breaking a habit. Whether marijuana has become
more addictive or not, the
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