Research warns that teens may be doing more damage with marijuana than they realize
Forget heroin, crack cocaine or methamphetamine.
The drug causing the most harm to Central Texas teens, especially younger ones, is marijuana, local officials said.
About 75 percent of area youths who enter substance abuse counseling have marijuana as their primary problem, treatment counselors said.
Local officials say that marijuana use by teenagers is more harmful than other substances abused by teens because it hinders development of the brain during its greatest growth. newsinasecond.com
Although marijuana is not potentially lethal or physically addicting like other drugs, it’s not a harmless substance like many people believe, they said.
If that sounds like a cheesy after-school television special, consider this: The brain does not fully develop until the early to mid-20s, researchers now know.
Scientists also know that the last part of the brain to develop is the area that regulates motivation and high-level tasks such as choice-making. Growth is rapid there during the teen years.
Introduce a substance like marijuana into that growth spurt and it’s inevitable problems will happen, experts said.
The largest one that counselors at Waco’s Freeman Center see is a loss of motivation, said Buddy Bowman, director of adolescent services for the substance abuse treatment center.
Teens who were once sports stars quit practicing. Students who had been doing well in school start failing. The list goes on, Bowman said.
“they don’t care and they don’t know they don’t care,” Bowman said.
That’s particularly concerning, Bowman said, because such teens are missing out on life at a time when they should be developing the academic knowledge and life skills needed to become a functional adult.
Even if they later stop using the drug, the time they lost may keep them from being able to reach their full potential, he said.
“Unfortunately, the average 15-year-ancient is deciding whether to be a drug addict or doctor, and they don’t even realize it,” Bowman said.
Questioning the hurt
Research on how marijuana affects the brain is not as concrete as for some other drugs, said Cynthia Kuhn, a pharmacology professor at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.
Not enough human studies have been done to determine whether marijuana affects the final stages of brain development in an anatomical way, she said
Because of that, researchers aren’t sure whether the hurt caused by marijuana is irreversible. Kuhn said. it may be that the drug only impairs development during active use, she said.
But it’s not a stretch to reckon marijuana could affect the teenage brain like other substances, Kuhn said. With alcohol, for example, studies have found that people who drink before age 14 are much more likely to battle addiction later life than those who wait until age 21.
“my question to teens would be, why do you want to do that experiment on yourself?” Kuhn said.
Another point people need to keep in mind, Kuhn said, is that marijuana is different from many substances because of how long-acting it is. Half-life refers to the amount of time it takes a substance to decrease by half. THC, marijuana’s active ingredient, has a half-life of 12 to 18 hours, she said.
“If someone smokes it every day, it’s always there,” Kuhn said. “They’re just chronically intoxicated.”
Because of that, marijuana can be more detrimental to academic learning than alcohol, which teens also abuse at high rates, Kuhn said.
Bowman said teens he worked with have shown marked improvement after about three months of non-use. But it takes a full six months before all the residual effects on functioning disappear, he said.
The analogy Bowman uses is that of a dimmer switch.
“Parents, juvenile probation officers tell me they don’t know where this kid suddenly came from,” Bowman said.
People who continue to use marijuana into young adulthood often don’t have adequate coping skills, Bowman said. he regularly sees people in treatment who are overwhelmed by ordinary responsibilities, such as keeping a job or caring for their children.
“they walk in here at 30 and they’re (developmentally) 15 years ancient,” he said.
People who downplay the danger of marijuana like to point out that it’s not physically addicting, Bowman said. That’s true.
But a psychological addiction is not a minor thing, he said. he uses the example of going five days without food. most people could do that physically. But the mental challenge would be immense, he said.
In some ways, the fact that marijuana is not physically addictive makes it a more hard to combat, Bowman said. The life-threatening effects of other drugs is often what prompts people to quit.
Unseen consequences
Teran Yaklin, a chemical dependency therapist at DePaul Center in Waco, said misinformation about marijuana is pervasive. a number of clients have told her they reckon the best strategy for quitting another drug like methamphetamine is to switch to marijuana. some have gotten that advice from friends or family members, she said.
“they really do reckon it’s no different than (cigarette) smoking,” she said.
Gabe Dominguez, youth director at Mission Waco, said that’s certainly true among the at-risk teenagers he works with. he estimated 95 percent of them smoke marijuana and virtually none view it as a problem.
The teens will talk about people they know being in drunk-driving accidents or getting caught up in violence fueled by drugs such as crack cocaine. But they don’t see those same kind of consequences with marijuana.
“they don’t see it as a drug,” he said.
Waco Independent School District Police Chief Gil Miller said many of the teens his department deals with have that same mindset. Marijuana and illicit use of prescription drugs are the two largest substance abuse problems in Waco schools, he said.
“some of the kids we talk to seem to see it as the norm,” Miller said of marijuana use. “At times, they feel perplexed why we reckon it’s a problem.”
The excellent news, Kuhn said, is that research shows parents can significantly reduce the risk of children trying marijuana if they express clear disapproval of it. Because teens’ brains are still developing, it’s vital to emphasize the immediate negative effects, rather than just long-term risks, she said.
Immediate effects
Such effects include yellowed teeth, stinky breath, a cough and reduced lung capacity for sports, she said.
Sue Rusche, CEO of a drug prevention group called National Families in Action, agreed that setting family rules with clear consequences is crucial. Parents need to be especially proactive at key transition points, such as when children move from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school, she said.
“Parents need to look out for their kids and realize they need them as much as when they were toddlers,” Rusche said.
To Bowman, the best thing parents can do to prevent teen marijuana use is to create an environment that focuses on other, positive things. Adults also need to make sure teens develop adequate coping skills so they don’t turn to a drug when the inevitable ups and down of adolescence happen.
“The kids that don’t do marijuana, it’s not that they’ve said no to drugs,” Bowman said. “It’s that there’s something else they said yes to.”
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Research warns that teens may be doing more hurt with marijuana than they realize