Anne has answers: How bad is pot use?
How bad is marijuana use, especially for teenagers? Dr. R. Jeffrey Goldsmith explains.
Anne has answers: How bad is pot use? How bad is marijuana use, especially for teenagers? Dr. R. Jeffrey Goldsmith explains. Check out this story on portclintonnewsherald.com: http://cin.ci/1NbAVMk
Anne Saker, asaker@enquirer.com Published 6:04 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2015
Some research said marijuana affects short-term memory and motivation. But a study in January found that marijuana is not as dangerous as alcohol.
How bad is marijuana? For teenagers, there's a big risk. But a study in January came out and said flatly that marijuana is not as bad as alcohol.(Photo: File)
Got a question about marijuana legalization in Ohio? Anne Saker, The Enquirer's lead reporter on the topic, can find answers.Contact Anne at asaker@enquirer.com, 513-768-8489, facebook.com/annesaker, Twitter @apsaker, #AnneHasAnswers.
Claudia Harrod of Madeira asks: "There is quite a lot of opposition to Issue 3 from well-respected and knowledgeable medical/law/prevention/treatment professionals and civic organizations. What about the arguments against Issue 3, and the detrimental effects of marijuana use?"
Thank you, Claudia, for the question. Indeed, dozens of medical and mental-health professionals in Ohio have come out against the legalization of marijuana.
Who's for, against Issue 3 plan to legalize pot
Their concerns center not on Issue 3's controversial economic model but on the effect that marijuana can have on the body. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2013, nearly a quarter of American high school students surveyed said they used marijuana in the previous month, and 40 percent said they tried marijuana at least once in their lives.
In 1982, the U.S. surgeon general listed problems with marijuana use, especially for teenagers, "who are particularly vulnerable to the drug's behavioral and psychological effects," including short-term memory loss, impaired lung function, decreased sperm count, interference with ovulation, impaired immune response and storage of marijuana metabolites in body fat.
Dr. R. Jeffrey Goldsmith is a Cincinnati psychiatrist who is president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He spoke last month at an Evanston public forum about Issue 3, and he strongly cautioned against legalization. I talked to him in June.
"Nine percent of adults can get addicted to it," Goldsmith said, "and it's like 16 percent to 17 percent of teenagers who get addicted to it. I'm not just saying they get intoxicated. I'm saying they get addicted."
Goldsmith pointed out that teenagers are especially sensitive to the effects of marijuana because the human brain is growing and developing until age 25. The psychoactive component of marijuana, THC, "will change our cognition. There have been studies of people who started using as teenagers, and the researchers checked them every few years, then checked them again at 35. People who regularly use as a teenagers, and I think regularly, five times a week or more, can show IQ changes of eight points, and that seems to be permanent, if they use regularly for many years. So when we affect the developing brain, we actually change people's cognitive functioning and make them less functional."
Goldsmith emphasized that he is speaking not as a politician but as a doctor with many years of experience with addiction. "I want doctors to speak up. They have to know what the problems are for their patients, and they have to speak up for it. So that's my first issue: Can doctors be good doctors? We're here to take care of our patients. Part of being good doctors is being good educators."
Yet within the medical community, there are differences of opinion regarding marijuana. A study in the journal Scientific Reports published in January found that marijuana is less harmful to people than alcohol.
Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach
The study said research on marijuana, and, for that matter, other controlled substances, in general is thin: "Compared to medicinal products or other consumer products, risk assessment of drugs of abuse has been characterized as deficient. Much of this is based on historical attribution and emotive reasoning."
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