essay on effects of marijuana

The Health Hazards of Legalizing Marijuana

I n a dramatic example of government yielding to public opinion the Senate has introduced legislation to legalize cannabis on the federal level . Though passage before the November election is unlikely, this long overdue legislative action seeks to update a statute stemming [pun intended] from marijuana’s demonized image as depicted in the 1936 documentary film “Reefer Madness” and better reflect public opinion and liberal social trends. Currently, under the Federal  Controlled Substances Act  (CSA) of 1970, cannabis is considered to have “no accepted medical use” and a high potential for abuse and physical or psychological dependence. This Federal statute contrasts with the claims of therapeutic benefits of cannabis’ biochemical constituents such as cannabidiol and THC (tetra-hydro-cannabinol) when the sole FDA indication for their use is a rare childhood (Lennox-Gasteau) seizure disorder.

While the scientific information to officially endorse cannabis products as having therapeutic benefits is lacking, a recent Pew Research Center Survey found that 88 percent of Americans felt that marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use. This wave of popular opinion has led to marijuana’s approval in 38 states for medical use, in 24 states for recreational use and decriminalization in an additional seven states.

Who could have anticipated that in less than two decades, a naturally grown recreational intoxicant, cannabis sativa, would go from demonization (as) to mainstream, and begat a tsunami of popular demand for legalization and a gold-rush of commercialization fueled by $61 billion of investment. Some may see this as an impressive demonstration of social progress, while others consider it the result of reckless and ill-conceived policies that have created a tangled matrix of laws and conflicting incentives based on confused logic and incomplete knowledge.

Americans now have access to a recreational intoxicant that is arguably no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco without fear of the disproportionately severe punishments previously meted out to those apprehended for possession and use. But at the same time, there are numerous inconsistencies and cross-purposes integral to the legalization and commercialization of cannabis products. The most obvious of these is the fact that Federal law considers the use, sale, and possession of cannabis illegal.

Read More: What Marijuana Reclassification Means for the United States

The consequence of the latter was not just that the exaggerated therapeutic claims were not born out by scientific research, but that it served as a “Trojan Horse” to galvanize public opinion and advance cannabis advocates ultimate goal of unfettered access. This came to fruition when the state legislatures of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize the commercial production and sale of cannabis products in 2012. This triggered a stunning demonstration of states’ rights in which a majority of states followed suit by liberalizing their cannabis laws despite Federal prohibitions. 

The legislative conflict between Federal and state laws is not ideal, but not a grievous problem in large part because the conflict is tolerated and not enforced. More onerous is the conflict between legislative reform and public health that has emerged. By acceding to public opinion and false claims of salutary effects, state governments are exposing their constituents to health hazards. Compounding this misguided policy is the fact that state governments are incentivized by the prospect of increased tax revenues.

In a glaring recent example of governmental missteps, on March 17, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared New York State’s commercialized cannabis licensing and distribution system “ a disaster ” and announced “a top-to-bottom review of the NYS Cannabis Control Board and its system for regulating legalized cannabis products.” The main purpose of the review was to process applications faster and enable more cannabis vendors to open. Just weeks before  Hochul’s executive order which was intended to give New Yorkers greater access to cannabis, the American Heart Association had issued a warning on the higher risks of cardiovascular events associated with heavy cannabis use. This was based on a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study of nearly 435,000 American adults reported last November which found that “Daily use of cannabis –– was associated with a 25% increased likelihood of heart attack and a 42% increased likelihood of stroke when compared to non-use of the drug.”

Prior to that, the NIH issued the following warning: “Regular recreational marijuana users had psychotic disorders at a greater rate than any other recreational drug. More than cocaine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, LSD, PCP, or alcohol. The risk of negative mental health effects is increased about five times by regular use of high potency marijuana.” High potency refers to the fact that the commercialized pot sold legally today is not the same naturally grown weed smoked by constituents of the counterculture.

Such health hazards are not some abstract possibility or unconfirmed scientific speculation, but a growing current reality. As a practicing psychiatrist I have witnessed these effects first-hand as a burgeoning number of cannabis-induced medical and mental disturbances—particularly in young people—show up in our hospital emergency rooms and are referred to me for consultation.  And while the rising numbers of adverse effects occurring in the wake of legislative reform are disturbing, they are not surprising. Rather, they were anticipated.

At the start of the movement to liberalize access to cannabis in 2014, Roger Dupont, the founding director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and I published an article in the medical journal Science that predicted such adverse effects.“The debates over legalization, decriminalization, and medical uses of marijuana in the United States are missing an essential piece of information: scientific evidence about the effects of marijuana on the adolescent brain,” we wrote. “Much is known about the effects of recreational drugs on the mature adult brain, but there has been no serious investigation of the risks of marijuana use in younger users.”

Part of the argument for legalizing cannabis was that it was no more dangerous than other legal recreational intoxicants like alcohol and tobacco. However, as Kevin Sabet, National Drug Control Policy Advisor in the Bush and Obama administrations pointed out in his book SmokeScreen: What the marijuana industry doesn’t want you to know, legislators didn’t reckon on the possibility that commercialization of cannabis would lead to inconceivably high potencies (with THC concentrations in some products approaching levels up to 99.9% as compared to less than 10% in naturally grown pot sold on the black market).

This was revealed in an NBC News report on states enacting legislation to legalize cannabis in April 2022: “We were not aware when we were voting [in 2012] that we were voting on anything but the plant,” said Dr. Beatriz Carlini,  a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute. She has led the effort in Washington state to research high-potency pot and is now exploring policy options to limit access. Her team concluded in 2020 that “high-potency cannabis can have lifelong mental health consequences.”

So while possible therapeutic value has been the lever, tax revenue for states and profits for new industries—resulting from broad access—has clearly become the goal with unsuspecting users as the potential victims. This is the template now driving rapid legalization of a host of previously prohibited recreational drugs including MDMA (ecstasy) and psychedelics.

There are reasons to believe in, and support, the therapeutic potential and safe recreational use of cannabis. However, it is imperative that accurate knowledge derived from research carried out with scientific rigor, objectivity, and dispassion inform legislation and policy that will affect the lives of millions of Americans and particularly youth. Until we have this knowledge, we must be prepared to temper the irrational exuberance of advocates for unrestricted recreational use and restrain the commercial interests from expanding the user base and potency of cannabis products. The responsibility for this resides with government. Governors and legislators must hold the line and not succumb to the pressure of public opinion and temptation of additional tax revenues.

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Marijuana’s Health Effects Are About to Get a Whole Lot Clearer

Rescheduling weed will clear the way for scientists to study it more directly.

Earlier this week, news leaked of the biggest change in federal drug policy in more than half a century. The Associated Press reported —and the Department of Justice later confirmed —that the Drug Enforcement Administration plans to recategorize marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Since the 1970s, it’s been placed in Schedule I, a highly controlled group that includes drugs like heroin, with a high potential for abuse and no medical use. But cannabis will soon be moved to the much less restrictive Schedule III, which includes prescription drugs such as ketamine and Tylenol with codeine that have a moderate-to-low risk of addiction.

Currently, recreational cannabis is legal for adults over the age of 21 in 24 states, which are home to more than half of the U.S. population. According to a recent Harris poll , about 40 percent of Americans use cannabis, and a quarter do so on at least a weekly basis. And yet, researchers and physicians told me, scientific consensus on the drug’s precise effects—especially on the heart and lungs, mental health, and developing adolescent brains—is still lacking. Rescheduling marijuana will broaden access further still, which makes finding better answers to those questions even more crucial.

Conveniently, rescheduling marijuana is also likely to spur in-depth study, in part by expanding research opportunities that were previously limited or nonexistent. Easing restrictions will ultimately mean learning a lot more about the potential harms and benefits of a drug that for decades has been both popular and demonized.

Historically, the scope of cannabis research has been fairly limited. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, a major federal research funder, has a directive to study the harms of cannabis use rather than any potential benefits, says Amanda Reiman, the chief knowledge officer of New Frontier Data. (New Frontier is an analytics firm focused on the legal cannabis industry.) In 2018, research on the potential harms of cannabis use received more than double the funding that research on its medicinal or therapeutic use did in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. In 2020, a spokesperson for NIDA told Science that although the agency’s traditional focus was on marijuana addiction, it has started exploring the therapeutic potential of compounds in cannabis to treat addiction to other substances.

U.S. policy has also made marijuana research of any sort very difficult. Until recently, scientists had to obtain their supply from NIDA’s high-security Mississippi facility. (Six more sources were approved last year.) Researchers regularly complained that the marijuana was moldy, and far from the quality that regular consumers could purchase legally at their local dispensary, with less THC and CBD.

Read: The government’s weed is terrible

Most existing research on how cannabis affects our hearts, our brains, and our society at large is based on self-reported survey data, Peter Grinspoon, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a medical-cannabis expert, told me. Such data are “notoriously inaccurate,” he said. But researchers have been forced to rely on these methods because cannabis is a Schedule I drug, so no studies that receive federal funding can simply give marijuana from state-approved dispensaries to people and record what happens.

As a result, the field lacks the number of high-quality studies necessary for researchers to agree on their implications, says Nick Cioe, an associate professor at Assumption University in Massachusetts who has studied the effects of marijuana on traumatic brain injuries. Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard of determining a given drug’s harms and benefits, but for weed, they’ve been nearly impossible. The FDA has approved a handful of cannabis-derived products to treat conditions such as seizures and chemotherapy-induced nausea, but that’s not the same as understanding the effects of recreational weed.

After marijuana is officially rescheduled, researchers will have a far easier time studying the drug’s effects. Researching any federally controlled substance is difficult, but obtaining the proper licenses for using Schedule III drugs in the lab is much less arduous than for Schedule I. Scientists will also have far more opportunities to obtain federal grant funding from all sorts of governmental bodies—the National Institutes of Health, the EPA, even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—as policy makers rush to understand the implications of legalization.

Human trials won’t start the second that the DEA makes marijuana’s new status official. Researchers will have to wait for guidance from federal agencies like the FDA and the NIH, says R. Lorraine Collins, the director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. And given the limitations around Schedule III drugs, scientists still won’t be able to simply purchase the same cannabis that millions of Americans are consuming from their local dispensary.

Read: Almost no one is happy with legal weed

Schedule III won’t “magically alleviate the bureaucratic headaches” associated with researching cannabis, Grinspoon said. But “it’s going to be a lot easier to say, ‘Let’s give this person cannabis and see what happens to their blood pressure.’”

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Legalizing Marijuana: Pros and Cons, Research Paper Example

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Since ancient times, marijuana has been used to achieve a state of euphoria, having been described in a Chinese medical reference dating from approximately 2737 B.C.. In modern times, marijuana has been used both recreationally as well as for medicinal purposes. Although it is illegal in the United States on a federal level, more recently, several states have put the issue of legalizing marijuana on referenda to ascertain public support for decriminalizing it.  There are many people who support can oppose the legalization of marijuana for moral, financial, and recreational reasons.  This paper summarizes schools of thought on both sides of the issue, ultimately expressing support for the legalization of marijuana.

Introduction

Since ancient times, marijuana has been used to achieve a state of euphoria, having been described in a Chinese medical reference dating from approximately 2737 B.C. (History of Marijuana, 2012.) It was used as a remedy for such conditions as rheumatism, gout, malaria, and even absentmindedness. In modern times, marijuana has been used both recreationally as well as for medicinal purposes. Although it is illegal in the United States on a federal level, more recently, several states have put the issue of legalizing marijuana on referenda to ascertain public support for decriminalizing it. This paper will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of legalizing marijuana, ultimately supporting the stands that for various reasons–both economical and social–legalizing pot would be beneficial in the United States.

The changing attitudes towards marijuana are evident when one looks at the United States government’s policies and practices regarding the drug. There has been a long history of marijuana use in the country. By the late 1900s, issues of American medical journals recommended hemp seeds and roots to be used for the relief of inflamed skin, incontinence, as well as the venereal disease (Stack, 2009.). In addition, marijuana was found to relieve the pain of rheumatism and was also useful in treating discomfort and nausea when people were afflicted with rabies, cholera, and tetanus. The attitudes of Americans towards marijuana involves at the end of the 19th century, when between 2% and 5% of Americans were addicted to morphine although they were unaware of this; it was a frequently used ingredient in patent medications that had lively names, such as “The People’s Healing Liniment for Man or Beast” or “Dr. Fenner’s Golden Relief.” In order to reduce the use of morphine, the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 was created, ultimately becoming the FDA. Although, these regulations do not apply to marijuana and only brought opium and morphine under the control of doctors, the act represented a significant change in American drug policy by regulating chemical substances (Stack, 2009.)

In 1914, drug use (morphine and opium) was labeled as a crime under the Harrison Act. By 1937, however, marijuana was outlined by 23 states in an effort to prevent morphine addicts from switching to a new drug; in addition, the move was a backlash against Mexican immigrants, who frequently arrived carrying marijuana. That same year, the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Act, making nonmedical use of marijuana against the law. During World War II, an exception was made to the ban on marijuana because the government planted tremendous hemp crops to provide naval rope needs that were depleted because Asian hemp had been supplied by the Japanese. In the 1950s, Congress passed legislation that included mandatory sentences for drug offenders, including possession and sale of marijuana.

Although marijuana laws were eased in the 1970s, the Reagan Administration adapted a policy of getting-tough-on-drugs, including marijuana. Overall, though, in the United States, the long-term tendency towards marijuana has been a relaxation of penalties. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, and since then, 12 more states have followed suit. Opponents of the medical marijuana issue believe that legalizing it has created an underground pot network in states that allow its use. Currently, although the use and sale of marijuana is illegal on a federal level, the United States Justice Department has recently said that federal prosecutors would not make efforts to arrest medical marijuana users and distributors as long as they follow state statutes. Currently, 13 states permit physicians to write prescriptions for medical marijuana for patients who are suffering from a range of illnesses, from AIDS to glaucoma as well as who are suffering the side effects of chemotherapy treatments (Stack, 2009.)

Case for Support

People who support the legalization of marijuana provide a range of arguments to make their case. They are based on the following points:

• Marijuana generally is no more harmful than alcohol or tobacco, as long as it is used moderately.
• Curtailing the use of marijuana violates personal freedoms.
• Legalization would lead to lower prices, and as a result, the crime rate would decrease because of fewer instances of theft.
• Marijuana provides medical benefits to certain people, including those who are going through chemotherapy.
• Street crimes relating to sale and distribution of marijuana would be minimized.
• Potentially, marijuana could offer additional tax revenues if regulated.
• Police and the legal system would have a great deal of time freed up to focus on more serious crimes.
• Drug dealers, which often include terrorists, would lose most or all of their businesses.
• The FDA, or similar agencies, could regulate the quality and safety of the drug.
• Similar to sex, alcohol or cigarettes, marijuana provides pleasure for certain people.
• Besides recreational drug use, marijuana has a range of industrial and commercial uses, since more than 25,000 products can be made from.
• Drug arrests often put young people into a criminal justice system where they can become lifelong criminals (Should Marijuana Be Legalized under Any Circumstances?)

Case Against Legalizing Marijuana

On the other hand, the opponents of legalizing marijuana have a host of substantial arguments as well. Among their points are: that marijuana is frequently a gateway drug, which leads to addictions to heroin, cocaine, and other more dangerous drugs; if marijuana were legalized, driving under the influence would present dangers on the road; use of marijuana is morally wrong; and the legalization of marijuana would maximize the chances that children would use pot. In addition, if marijuana remains a crime then people who have been arrested for its use or sale and who are more likely to commit other crimes can be taken off the streets. It is argued that people who abuse marijuana sustained physical damage, and the widespread use of it would increase the likelihood of secondhand smoke damage to people around the smokers. Finally, people who oppose the legalization of marijuana often do so because they believe that decriminalizing it would eventually lead to legalizing harder drugs, or even all drugs, which would present a danger to society.

In my opinion, prohibiting marijuana use is unnecessary government intrusion into the individual freedom of choice that is inherent in civil liberties in this country. In addition, marijuana is less harmful to a person’s health and alcohol or drugs, both of which are legal, widely used, and regulated by the FDA (White, 2012.) There are many health benefits to patients with a variety of illnesses including cancer, AIDS, and glaucoma. In addition, keeping marijuana illegal promotes violent crime in the United States, as well as near the US-Mexico border because of the legality of the marijuana trade. Criminal behavior connected with the marijuana drug cartels would automatically put an end to those dangers.

A major reason to support legalizing marijuana is also the tremendous amount of time and resources invested by law enforcement due to arresting marijuana users and sellers; given how much serious crime exists in the United States, it makes much more sense to use those resources to pursue and arrest people who are committing serious and violent crimes. In addition, when young people are arrested for marijuana offenses, they frequently receive severe punishment that can cause unnecessary personal and social harm, and consequences that can last for a lifetime. These are people that may not be able to find employment because of their drug convictions, and they may have difficulty in interpersonal skills because of time served in prison and the way that experience can corrupt a person’s ability to engage in healthy relationships.

There are also many financial reasons that support the legalization of marijuana. The crop is one of the country’s top-selling agricultural products, with an estimate that marijuana sales in California are over $14 billion each year (White, 2012.) If marijuana was legalized, it could be taxed, providing revenues that could go a long way towards resolving the country’s fiscal crisis. Another financial advantage to legalizing marijuana would be saving the billions of dollars that the government spends each year in waging their War on Drugs, which has been an abysmal failure anyway.

Public attitudes towards legalizing marijuana have been steadily changing for years. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize both the possession and sale of marijuana to be used for recreational purposes (Coffman, 2012.) Certainly, the drive to legalize marijuana also has many opponents, demonstrated recently when a ballot measure to remove criminal penalties for personal possession and growth of recreational marijuana was defeated in Oregon. However, overall, the attitudes of Americans towards legalizing marijuana have been trending in a liberal direction for years. The use of marijuana is legal in many other countries, and for all of the reasons cited previously, it would be in the best interests of all involved if it became legal in this country as well.

References:

History of Marijuana. (2012). Retrieved December 2, 2012, from Narconon International: http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/marijuana-history.html

Should Marijuana Be Legalized under Any Circumstances? (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2012, from Balance Politics.org: http://www.balancedpolitics.org/marijuana_legalization.htm

Stack, P. (2009, October 21). The Brief History of Medical Marijuana. Retrieved December 2, 2012, from Time: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1931247,00.html

White, D. (2012). Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana. Retrieved December 2, 2012, from About.com: http://usliberals.about.com/od/patriotactcivilrights/i/MarijuanaProCon.htm

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The Reality of Teens and Weed

The risks and consequences of marijuana use for young adults..

Posted May 1, 2024 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• Millions of teenagers in the United States use marijuana.
• “Weed” may be the only emotional relief, albeit temporary, some teens can find.
• Young people who are depressed are more likely to use marijuana, but it can make their depression worse.
• The adult SUD and overdose crisis has its roots in teen and young adult use that targets and changes brains.

Child and adolescent psychiatrist Sarah Y. Vinson says some adolescents use marijuana because it’s the only “medicine” they can access. For some teens, marijuana is to emotional pain as acetaminophen is to physical pain. A major reason for this lies in the difficulty of obtaining adequate (or any) mental health care and/or medications for adolescents.

According to Vinson, chair of the psychiatry department at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, “The reality for the poor traumatized kids I treat, and their parents and caregivers, is marijuana is a whole lot more accessible than high-quality, trauma-informed, culturally and structurally sensitive mental health care.”

She adds, “Marijuana is culturally sanctioned as a treatment for anxiety , depression , boredom , and a range of other psychiatric problems. Cannabis had been proposed as a treatment for most of the DSM and is the only treatment most of my patients can get regardless of whether it is safe or effective for any of these problems.”

I asked child and adolescent psychiatry and addiction experts Vinson and Marc Potenza about the consequences of teen use of marijuana, and both said the impact of cannabis on the developing brains and behavior of young people is a special concern.

According to Potenza , the Steven M Southwick Professor in the Yale Child Study Center and of Neuroscience ; and director of the Yale Program for Research on Impulsivity and Impulse Control Disorders :

“Increasing knowledge about the harmful effects of alcohol may be decreasing alcohol consumption among some younger groups. Cannabis legalization has been accompanied by greater social acceptance of cannabis use, and these perceptions seem prominent among younger individuals. We see impacts on mood, psychiatric illness, increases in risky behaviors like unprotected sex , gambling, other drug use and driving under the influence of cannabis, THC, and or other drugs or alcohol.”

A recent study at Columbia found casual teenage use of marijuana increased risks for depression and suicidal behavior , as well as problem behaviors such as truancy, poor grades, and trouble with law enforcement. The researchers found that about 2.5 million teens were casual users. Casual users were up to 2.5 times more likely than non-users to have behavioral and mental health problems.

Facts on Teenage Weed Use

In 2022, 1.2 million adolescents ages 12-17 began using marijuana for the first time. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 6.4% of 12-17-year-olds (4.3 million people) used marijuana in the past month in 2022.

It’s also important to note that, in 2017, among adolescents aged 12-17 who used marijuana, 22% were depressed. A psychiatric disorder, particularly depression, also may increase the risk of marijuana abuse. According to SAMHSA, some adolescents (5%) had marijuana use disorder in 2022, which means they experienced adverse consequences of their drug use and yet couldn’t give the drug up.

How Marijuana Is Used Is Changing

Adolescents aged 12-17 used various means to ingest marijuana in 2022; the most popular was smoking (77%), followed by vaping (60%). (Some teens used multiple routes but chose the route with the greatest dose of THC delivered to the brain in the shortest time.) Overall, there's not much difference between smoking and vaping, as inhalation is highly addicting—pharmacologically, like intravenous injection. Also popular was eating or drinking the drug (36%) or using dabbing waxes and concentrates (23%). Some adolescent users applied marijuana in a lotion, cream, or skin patch or used drops, lozenges, strips, and other means of administration.

Reducing Risk for Psychosis From Marijuana

It is known that marijuana use may lead to psychiatric issues and even psychosis . In an article by Benedikt Fischer and colleagues, the authors explored key issues linked to an increased risk for a psychotic break in adolescents who use marijuana. For example, early use of marijuana (at age 16 or younger) was a risk for psychosis and thus should be avoided. They also noted that high-potency marijuana increases the risk of psychosis and should be avoided by adolescents. (However, teenagers may perceive high-potency marijuana as even better than “regular” marijuana.)

Frequency of use was another risk factor for psychosis, such as weekly or daily use, with those using the drug daily at elevated risk for serious psychiatric problems such as psychosis. In addition, individuals who use other addictive substances in addition to marijuana, such as tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs, have a greater risk for psychosis, as well as a worse outcome, such as more frequent treatment relapses or worse cognitive symptoms.

Individuals with traumatic events in their past risk psychosis with marijuana. There is also a genetic component; if biologically related family members became psychotic after marijuana use, this may mean adolescents are at risk and likely should avoid the drug altogether.

Sometimes, marijuana affects how well psychiatric treatment drugs work; for example, individuals who receive antipsychotic medications may find their medication ’s efficacy reduced when they use marijuana.

Adolescent Marijuana Users May Become Lifelong Consumers

Some purveyors of marijuana perceive adolescents as highly attractive consumers. “It shouldn’t surprise us THC is sold as gummy bears or 'Krondike' bars, or that vaping fluids with flavors like pineapple or mango come in thinly disguised packages that attract young people,” says Deepak Cyril D’Souza, Albert E. Kent Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and a leading expert on the pharmacology of cannabinoids. “The idea is if you have a young customer, you have a lifelong customer.”

Driving and Adolescent Weed Use

It’s illegal for anyone to drive under the influence of marijuana, although state laws vary considerably. The point is that some teenage marijuana users do drive under the influence. A 2017 study found that nearly half of adolescent drivers had driven a vehicle after using marijuana , and 1 in 8 (12.5%) reported driving under the influence of marijuana in the past month.

Teenagers may perceive driving under the influence of marijuana as safer than driving while intoxicated with alcohol; however, driving under the influence of any mood-impairing drug is dangerous. In addition, most adolescents are inexperienced drivers who need their mental acuity to decrease the risks of poor judgment causing car crashes. It is also important to avoid being a passenger in a car where the driver has ingested marijuana; individuals should refuse to enter a car in that situation. Admittedly, such a refusal may be difficult in the face of social pressure but it may be a life-saving choice.

The United States is confronting a public health crisis of substance use disorders and overdose deaths. We need to refocus and reenergize prevention and educational initiatives and support psychiatric treatment alternatives for youth. Addiction often begins with use in the teenage years, and 90% of all adults with substance use disorders began using alcohol, nicotine, or marijuana before age 18. Also, using any one substance (alcohol, nicotine, marijuana) significantly increases the likelihood of using the other two. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that even a one-year delay in drug use during adolescence can lower future trajectories of use for years to come. Brain researchers believe teenagers are extremely vulnerable because adolescent and young adult brains are still developing. Although marijuana is perceived as harmless by many, the dangers outlined in my prior post are amplified with much more dire consequences in youth.

Also note that there is some good news: A growing percentage of teens are using little or no alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, or other drugs. This approach should be encouraged for teens and young adults to help them reduce risks, develop to their full potential, and not join the adult SUD and overdose risk group. Even among less frequent users, we should encourage longer non-use periods. Lastly, improved mental health access for adolescents in the United States is urgently needed.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory .

Ghafouri M, Correa da Costa S, Zare Dehnavi A, Gold MS, Rummans TA. Treatments for Cannabis Use Disorder across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review. Brain Sci. 2024 Feb 28;14(3):227. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14030227. PMID: 38539616; PMCID: PMC10968391.

Tan B, Browne CJ, Nöbauer T, Vaziri A, Friedman JM, Nestler EJ. Drugs of abuse hijack a mesolimbic pathway that processes homeostatic need. Science. 2024 Apr 19;384(6693):eadk6742. doi: 10.1126/science.adk6742. Epub 2024 Apr 19. PMID: 38669575.

Sultan RS, Zhang AW, Olfson M, Kwizera MH, Levin FR. Nondisordered Cannabis Use Among US Adolescents. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(5):e2311294. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.11294

Mark S. Gold, M.D., is a pioneering researcher, professor, and chairman of psychiatry at Yale, the University of Florida, and Washington University in St Louis. His theories have changed the field, stimulated additional research, and led to new understanding and treatments for opioid use disorders, cocaine use disorders, overeating, smoking, and depression.

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Marijuana’s Health Effects Are About to Get a Whole Lot Clearer

E arlier this week, news leaked of the biggest change in federal drug policy in more than half a century. The Associated Press reported —and the Department of Justice later confirmed —that the Drug Enforcement Administration plans to recategorize marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Since the 1970s, it’s been placed in Schedule I, a highly controlled group that includes drugs like heroin, with a high potential for abuse and no medical use. But cannabis will soon be moved to the much less restrictive Schedule III, which includes prescription drugs such as ketamine and Tylenol with codeine that have a moderate-to-low risk of addiction.

Currently, recreational cannabis is legal for adults over the age of 21 in 24 states, which are home to more than half of the U.S. population. According to a recent Harris poll , about 40 percent of Americans use cannabis, and a quarter do so on at least a weekly basis. And yet, researchers and physicians told me, scientific consensus on the drug’s precise effects—especially on the heart and lungs, mental health, and developing adolescent brains—is still lacking. Rescheduling marijuana will broaden access further still, which makes finding better answers to those questions even more crucial.

Conveniently, rescheduling marijuana is also likely to spur in-depth study, in part by expanding research opportunities that were previously limited or nonexistent. Easing restrictions will ultimately mean learning a lot more about the potential harms and benefits of a drug that for decades has been both popular and demonized.

Historically, the scope of cannabis research has been fairly limited. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, a major federal research funder, has a directive to study the harms of cannabis use rather than any potential benefits, says Amanda Reiman, the chief knowledge officer of New Frontier Data. (New Frontier is an analytics firm focused on the legal cannabis industry.) In 2018, research on the potential harms of cannabis use received more than double the funding that research on its medicinal or therapeutic use did in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. In 2020, a spokesperson for NIDA told Science that although the agency’s traditional focus was on marijuana addiction, it has started exploring the therapeutic potential of compounds in cannabis to treat addiction to other substances.

U.S. policy has also made marijuana research of any sort very difficult. Until recently, scientists had to obtain their supply from NIDA’s high-security Mississippi facility. (Six more sources were approved last year.) Researchers regularly complained that the marijuana was moldy, and far from the quality that regular consumers could purchase legally at their local dispensary, with less THC and CBD.

[ Read: The government’s weed is terrible ]

Most existing research on how cannabis affects our hearts, our brains, and our society at large is based on self-reported survey data, Peter Grinspoon, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a medical-cannabis expert, told me. Such data are “notoriously inaccurate,” he said. But researchers have been forced to rely on these methods because cannabis is a Schedule I drug, so no studies that receive federal funding can simply give marijuana from state-approved dispensaries to people and record what happens.

As a result, the field lacks the number of high-quality studies necessary for researchers to agree on their implications, says Nick Cioe, an associate professor at Assumption University in Massachusetts who has studied the effects of marijuana on traumatic brain injuries. Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard of determining a given drug’s harms and benefits, but for weed, they’ve been nearly impossible. The FDA has approved a handful of cannabis-derived products to treat conditions such as seizures and chemotherapy-induced nausea, but that’s not the same as understanding the effects of recreational weed.

After marijuana is officially rescheduled, researchers will have a far easier time studying the drug’s effects. Researching any federally controlled substance is difficult, but obtaining the proper licenses for using Schedule III drugs in the lab is much less arduous than for Schedule I. Scientists will also have far more opportunities to obtain federal grant funding from all sorts of governmental bodies—the National Institutes of Health, the EPA, even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—as policy makers rush to understand the implications of legalization.

Human trials won’t start the second that the DEA makes marijuana’s new status official. Researchers will have to wait for guidance from federal agencies like the FDA and the NIH, says R. Lorraine Collins, the director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. And given the limitations around Schedule III drugs, scientists still won’t be able to simply purchase the same cannabis that millions of Americans are consuming from their local dispensary.

[ Read: Almost no one is happy with legal weed ]

Schedule III won’t “magically alleviate the bureaucratic headaches” associated with researching cannabis, Grinspoon said. But “it’s going to be a lot easier to say, ‘Let’s give this person cannabis and see what happens to their blood pressure.’”

Negative Effects Of Marijuana’s Essay | Bad and Positive Effects of Marijuana Essay in English

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