Making marijuana more available might appear to be a solution to the current drug crisis in our nation. However, a more critical look at the research evidence suggests just the opposite. Decades of research findings have shown that marijuana use puts an individual at heightened risk for misuse of prescription opioids, heroin and other drugs.
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Teens who use concentrated marijuana more likely to use other drugs→
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The highly concentrated form of the drug can be vaped and doesn't smell like traditional pot.
Read MoreMarijuana use is associated with an increased risk of prescription opioid misuse and use disorders→
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New research suggests that marijuana users may be more likely than nonusers to misuse prescription opioids and develop prescription opioid use disorder. The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Columbia University.
Read MoreTeens tend to think marijuana use is no big deal, but they’re wrong.→
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While teenagers might be binge-drinking less and having less sex than the previous generation did, marijuana use among teens, which had declined from the late 1990s through the mid-to-late 2000s, is on the rise again. This is a problem because, despite our culture’s increasingly casual attitudes toward pot, research suggests that marijuana use can damage the developing teen brain.
If kids are behaving more conservatively than their parents did as teens and engaging in fewer risky or harmful activities, why are they smoking more pot? Why do 60 percent of high school seniors say they think marijuana is safe? And why are more of them using marijuana than smoking cigarettes or drinking? How have our kids gotten the idea that pot is no big deal?
Read MoreIt’s not ‘just’ marijuana
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That father wanted something I could not give him, beyond a hug and shared tears, and consideration for his agony. He wanted the moment back. The earlier moment. He wanted his son back.
That was almost 20 years ago. The nation had lost 14,000 kids to overdoses that year. Congress wrote and passed the Drug Free Communities Act of 1997, Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, and federal anti-drug trafficking laws, including against trafficking marijuana. And drug abuse went down — markedly.
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