Teaching teens about marijuana's impact
Bright and curious, the teenage patient came prepared with some thought-provoking questions. Though she denied experimenting with street drugs, she really wanted to know what all the fuss was when it came to recreational marijuana use.
The girl had seen medical marijuana coverage online and in the print media, and compared to the hard drugs she had learned about in health class, marijuana seemed innocuous enough. Just what were the long-term consequences of its use?
Timely questions, it turns out, as recent studies find that teenage marijuana use is on the rise. National adolescent drug use is tracked annually through the Monitoring the Future studies sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Following years of declining adolescent marijuana use, the most recent NIDA survey reveals an upward trend in marijuana use since 2009.
In fact, in the last calendar year, a significant increase in daily marijuana use was noted in each of the three grade levels surveyed, with 1.2 percent of eighth graders, 3.3 percent of high school sophomores and 6.1 percent of seniors reporting daily use of marijuana.
MTF authors find that marijuana remains a “highly accessible” drug for teens as 41 percent of eighth graders, 69 percent of sophomores and 82 percent of seniors claim marijuana is “fairly easy” or “very easy” for them to obtain.
Researchers at the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy explain that the average potency of marijuana has more than doubled since 1998, as growers have learned to genetically engineer their crops to increase the content of THC, the active ingredient responsible for creating the marijuana smoker's “high.” Marijuana smoke is also recognized as a lung irritant and is found to contain up to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than its tobacco counterpart.
Acute marijuana intoxication can interfere with a user's perception of his environment as well as his coordination, problem-solving skills and memory. In addition, the drug control office cites research that links chronic marijuana use to increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and schizophrenia.
Teen marijuana use has come under increasing scrutiny in the last few years as scientists attempt to establish the long-term consequences of smoking marijuana during this important phase of continued brain development.
University of Cincinnati neuropsychology researcher Krista Lisdahl Medina finds that in teens who are chronic, heavy marijuana users, complex attentional skills still lag behind after discontinuing the street drug. University neuroimaging studies also show that adolescent marijuana smokers need to use more extensive areas of brain cortex to complete the same thinking tasks as their nonusing teen peers.
• Dr. Helen Minciotti is a mother of five and a pediatrician with a practice in Schaumburg. She formerly chaired the Department of Pediatrics at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.