Date: Monday, July 19, 2004 9:13:49 AM
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Have a great day, everyone.
Doug
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=549637§ion=news
Stronger pot may lead to reefer madness
Mon 19 July, 2004 13:19
Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alarmed by reports that marijuana is becoming
more potent than ever and that children are trying it at younger and
younger ages, U.S. officials are changing their drug policies.
Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater
threat than cocaine or even heroin because so many more people use it.
So officials at the National Institutes of Health and at the White House
are hoping to shift some of the focus in research and enforcement from
"hard" drugs such as cocaine and heroin to marijuana.
While drug use overall is falling among children and teens, the
officials worry that the children who are trying pot are doing so at
ever-younger ages, when their brains and bodies are vulnerable to
dangerous side effects.
"Most people have been led to believe that marijuana is a soft drug, not
a drug that causes serious problems," John Walters, head of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in an interview.
"(But) marijuana today is a much more serious problem than the vast
majority of Americans understand. If you told people that one in five of
12- to 17-year-olds who ever used marijuana in their lives need
treatment, I don't think people would remotely understand it."
JUMP IN POT-RELATED DETOX
The number of children and teen-agers in treatment for marijuana
dependence and abuse has jumped 142 percent since 1992, the National
Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported
in April.
According to the report, children and teens are three times more likely
to be in treatment for marijuana abuse than for alcohol, and six times
likelier to be in treatment for marijuana than for all other illegal
drugs combined.
And it found the age of youths using marijuana is falling. The teens
aged 12 to 17 said on average they started trying marijuana at 13-1/2.
The same survey found that adults aged 18 to 25 had first tried it at
16.
For National Institute on Drug Abuse director Dr. Nora Volkow the final
straw was a report her institute published in May in the Journal of the
American Medical Association showing the steady growth in the potency of
cannabis seized in raids.
According to the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Potency Project,
average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, rose steadily
from 3.5 percent in 1988 to more than 7 percent in 2003.
Volkow said many studies have shown the brain has its own so-called
endogenous cannabinoids. These molecules are similar in structure to the
active ingredients in marijuana and are involved in a range of
activities and emotions ranging from eye function to pain regulation and
anxiety.
GETTING INTO THE BRAIN
Brain cells have receptors -- molecular doorways -- designed
specifically to interact with these cannabinoids.
The cannabinoids in marijuana may use these ready-made doorways into
brain cells and this is why they cause a high and reduce pain
sensations. But Volkow believes the effects may go beyond the general
feeling of well-being that most marijuana users seek.
"I would predict that stronger pot makes the brain less likely to
respond to endogenous cannabinoids," Volkow said in an interview. The
effects could be especially marked in young brains still growing and
learning how to respond to stimuli, she said.
While the research so far is inconclusive, Volkow believes that
cannabinoids affect the developing brain and that stronger pot, combined
with earlier use, could make children and teens anxious, unmotivated or
perhaps even psychotic.
As an analogy, Volkow said opiate addicts are more sensitive to pain, as
their overuse of drugs have raised the threshold at which the body
responds and their own bodies produce fewer natural opiates.
NIDA is seeking proposals from researchers who want to investigate such
possibilities for cannabis, she said.
Proponents of legalising marijuana disagree with the official line.
Krissy Oechslin of the Marijuana Policy Project disputes the finding
that cannabis products are stronger.
"They make it sound like the THC levels in marijuana were almost
nonexistent, but no one would have smoked it then if that was true," she
said.
"And there's evidence that the stronger the THC, the less of it a person
smokes. I don't want to say it's good for you, but I'll say (more potent
marijuana) is less bad for you."
While Walters stresses that drug abusers are patients and not criminals,
he hopes to crack down more on producers. And he says, there is a way to
go in getting cooperation from local law enforcement officials. "For
many in enforcement, marijuana is still 'kiddie dope'," Walters said.
Walters is quick to stress he does not want to overreact.
"We shouldn't be victims of reefer madness," he said, referring to the
1930s propaganda film "Reefer Madness" that became a 1970s cult classic
for its over-the-top scenes of marijuana turning teens into homicidal
maniacs.
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