Feds: Teen use of pot can lead to dependency, mental illness
Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.
A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
"Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as we used to think in the past."
Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview.
For example, using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said.
The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot — 8 percent compared with 3 percent.
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Member Comments
Posted By: ceanf9 @ 05/10/2008 12:08:36 AM
Comment: burbank, ihave to disagree with you when you say this study is 'on the mark'. This 'study is what they call a meta-study. Basically they do no new research and combine the results of previous studies, manipulating the results to support their conclusions. I wouldn't give this study a single bit of credibility because a) it is from the white house drug war propaganda machine and b) relies of dubious statistical methodologies. As for your other comments... they reek of the nanny state mentality. Who are you to say that smoking pot brings others to the 'brink of despair', as it seems to have done to you? There are tens of millions of productive, successful american citizens that have at one time, or currently smoke marijuana. please step down from your 'i know whats better for you than you' pedestal.
Posted By: dreamwrthy @ 05/09/2008 11:05:43 AM
Comment: Goffness, you stated that the AMA has already stated that cannabis isn't dangerous. That is an outright lie. I've looked up their policy on cannabis on their website and they state unequivocably that it IS dangerous. Pull the other leg, why don't you.
Posted By: Goffness @ 05/09/2008 10:58:44 AM
Comment: The sad part about this is that most young people wont take this seriously at all. I myself really doubt that this is true. The best way to predict future behavior is to look at past behavior. The government has lied time and time again about marijuana and its effects. Science proves this, period. The young people in this country are tired of the boy who cried wolf, a.k.a. the drug war. Even if any of this were true, we've been mislead so many times that I cant imagine most people taking it seriously. Britain's top health officials just did a re-classification of controlled substances. They took in over 1500 factors ranging from personal health to sociatal impact. The result? Both tobacco and alcohol were in the top 7 most dangerous drugs, with cannabis coming in at number 11. The american medical association has already come out and said that cannabis is not a dangerous drug. The fact that cigs and booze kill almost 1 million people a year in this country and marijuana is some evil drug is absurd