Those of a certain age might recall the movie Reefer Madness, which went from being a propaganda film about the dangers of smoking marijuana to one quickly appropriated by the kids to mock what their parents thought. It was an awful movie. Then again, it was made in the 1930s, and resurrected in the 1960s, so Spielberg wasn't around yet.
Younger people back then--who may be nearing retirement today--used the film to show what squares their elders could be. Anybody who's anybody smokes a little grass, right? It can't hurt you. Besides, don't the old folks always say, "Everything in moderation"?
Times change. Research changes. So does marijuana.
We're going to have to trust the folks who sum up these things, because the latest report about the effects of marijuana discussed "bilateral medial temporal lobes" and "posterior cingulates," which is Greek to us, or at least Latin. But when the researchers started speaking English, they said their latest research showed that even low levels of marijuana--they note "extremely low levels"--is enough to change a teenager's brain.
This study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, tracked several dozen kids who reported only using marijuana once or twice by age 14.
Even for kids who only experimented with dope, there were big differences in the parts of the brain that process fear, emotion, memory and other abilities. Gray matter was expanding where it wasn't supposed to expand at that age.
Says one of the paper's senior authors: "The implication is that this is potentially a consequence of cannabis use. You're changing your brain with just one or two joints. Most people would likely assume that one or two joints would have no impact on the brain."
The researcher's name is Professor Hugh Garavan of the University of Vermont.
Dr. Garavan told the press that at age 14, most brains of boys and girls are going through some sort of "pruning" process in which gray matter gets thinner, not thicker, as it begins refining synaptic connections. "One possibility is they've actually disrupted that pruning process" by smoking grass, he said.
What does that mean?
Nobody really knows yet. But this research shows that something's changing, and it only takes a small amount of dope to do it.
These studies are becoming more frequent.
In October, The American Journal of Psychiatry published a hard-to-read paper showing that dope had more effect on young people than alcohol. (They need more poets in psychiatry.) You can find that paper here: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.18020202
Combine all that with this troubling stat: The National Institute on Drug Abuse now says more than 32 percent of 10th graders have said they've used marijuana at least once growing up. Many of us knew who the stoners were in our high school, but can you imagine if one-third of your school was using it?
It just so happens that this week, as this latest study made the news, we received an email from some folks at Hazelden Betty Ford, commenting on Alex Berenson's op-eds in national newspapers about the dangers--or at least the unknowns--of marijuana use. Mr. Berenson, a former reporter, is the author of a recent book about marijuana. Perhaps the most alarming paragraph in his op-eds is this one, appearing The Wall Street Journal last week:
"[Today's smokers] 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 percent THC. Today, marijuana routinely contains 20-25 percent 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."
Higher concentration of a drug + more kids using it + unknowns about how it affects the brain = hair-raising stuff.
Gentle Reader may think that a little dope didn't do him much harm in 1975. Maybe. But that was different dope. The latest research may not prove much, but it does suggest that a lot more study needs to be done with today's dope before we turn it loose on our kids.
Most Americans already live in states that either allow recreational use of marijuana or its medicinal use. Arkansas has taken the first step by allowing medical marijuana, which should soon start processing out of grass farms and into our homes.
That's unfortunate. But before we take the next logical step toward legalized marijuana for all, maybe we should ask for more research about how it affects our brains.
And the brains of our kids.
Editorial on 01/16/2019