| Weekend
Edition
September 9/10 , 2006
Teen Marijuana Use Declines
Is Medical Pot Image
a Turn-Off?
By FRED
GARDNER
Every
year the federal Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) conducts a survey on Drug Use and Health (DUH) and releases
reports on perceived trends. If the survey finds that drug use is
down, government officials say "Our approach is working, give
us more funding." If drug use is up, they say "We're in
an epidemic, we need more funding." This year they get to make
both pitches because drug use was found to be up in some age brackets
and down in others.
SAMHSA
released an "initial report" Sept. 7 based on the 2005
DUH Survey. "Youth Drug Use Continues Downward Slide, Older
Adult Rates of Use Increase©˜ was the headline. In the
12-to-17 age group, current marijuana users (those who acknowledged
using within the past month) declined from 8.2 percent in 2002 to
6.8 percent in 2005. Among adults aged 50 to 59, however, "the
rate of current illicit drug use increased from 2.7 percent to 4.4
percent between 2002 and 2005, reflecting the aging into this age
group of the baby boom cohort."
In
2005, the average age of first-time marijuana users was 17.4 years
- a five-month increase since 2003. Drug Czar John Walter commented,
"Something important is happening with American teens. They
are getting the message that using drugs limits their futures."
Or maybe they're becoming more afraid to level with government survey
takers. The DUH Survey has some 67,500 respondents nationwide. There
were 14.6 million past-month marijuana users in 2005, supposedly.
If
one trusted the data, one could conclude that the increasingly prevalent
image of marijuana as medicine encourages older people to use it
while making it less appealing to kids.
For
everything spin, spin, spin
There is some research spin spin spin
And a line for every product under heaven
"Today's
illegal market didn't really begin until large numbers of American
teens born during the post-World-War-Two baby boom began smoking
pot in the mid-1960s," says Tom O'Connell, MD, a California
cannabis specialist who has collected and analyzed demographic info
from more than 3,000 patients. "The market has grown steadily
ever since, despite all attempts of the federal government to eradicate
it... Adolescence is precisely when chronic pot use began for the
great majority of current users. My data show the opposite of a
'gateway' effect -pot use in adolescence is associated with diminished
initiation of more problematic drugs and diminished use of alcohol
and tobacco."
There
was a pot bust Sept. 6 at a UC Berkeley residential co-op Sept.
6 after some 30 students had adverse reactions to some marijuana-laced
brownies they'd eaten at a meeting. Twelve students wound up in
the ER with symptoms that included anxiety, rapid heart rate, chest
pains, "and a feeling of doom," according to Alameda County
Fire Capt. Tim Dillon.
The
alleged brownie suppliers -two students and a recent grad- were
arrested amid rumors that they had added psychedelic mushrooms to
their product. Our source discounts those rumors. "There were
lots of people who didn't know how strong a marijuana brownie can
be. They may have eaten a couple. A marijuana overdose is not only
unpleasant, it lasts and it lasts. They started having a mass bummer
and called for help."
Dr.
O'Connell adds, "Pot doesn't have as much user control as most
users require/need/would like unless it's smoked, which for most
people is a paradox. Smoking almost completely avoids the 'first
pass' effect in which everything absorbed by the gut and scrutinized
by hepatocytes [enzymes in the liver] and a significant fraction
may be metabolized into something entirely different. Since the
major site of pot's action on the emotions is the brain, the first
pass frustrates the titration smokers have become used to in two
ways. First, they have to wait for digestion and then they have
to do without the familiar anxiolytic [anti-anxiety] benefit that
induced most of them to become chronic users to begin with.
"Add
the fact that the duration of action of the liver's variant product
is tripled and you'll understand why most chronic users either give
edibles a wide berth or reserve them for week-end use at picnics,
concerts, etc."
A
Split Verdict on Prop 215
This
Labor Day Weekend is the official start of the "10th Anniversary
of Prop 215" season. Expect a split verdict from the pundits.
Prop
215 is a success. The genie is out of the bottle and can't be put
back.
More than 250,000 people have gotten doctor's approval
to medicate with cannabis and no pattern of adverse effects has
been discerned -in fact, not a single death from overdose has been
reported! Word-of-mouth keeps expanding the number of medical marijuana
users. From Humboldt to Orange County, doctors who specialize in
issuing approvals have no appointments available for months ahead.
The California experience has clearly established that cannabis
cam be safe and effective medicine.
Dispensaries keep opening -there are some 300 now
operating statewide. Cities and counties, including Los Angeles
and San Francisco, have developed regulations for dispensaries.
On no other issue are the American people so united in their belief
that the government is lying. "Weeds" on Showtime reflects
a level of acceptance unthinkable 10 years ago.
Prop 215 has been successfully contained by law
enforcement. Ten years after its passage, in a state of more than
30 million people, only 250,000 have gotten a doctor's approval
to medicate with cannabis. The doctors are so frightened that a
small group of 15-20 specialists have issued at least half the approvals
-and the Medical Board is actively investigating five of them.
The Supreme Court's ruling in the Raich case has
created the widespread impression that "federal law trumps
state law," i.e., marijuana is illegal no matter what its use.
Municipalities are banning dispensaries; their operators and suppliers
are being tried and convicted. Growers who thought they had some
legal protection--Dustin Costa, Robert Schmidt, and others--languish
in prison. A moral inversion has occurred. Whereas in 1996 a majority
knew that truth was on the side of Dennis Peron and the SF Cannabis
Buyers Club, today most people think that hordes of able-bodies
young men are feigning ailments to score marijuana. Cynicism pervades
the movement itself. "Weeds" reveals medical marijuana
for the scam that it is.
"There
are stores on Sunset Blvd doing $40,000 a day selling OG Kush for
$80 an eighth to people running in while their girlfriend's sitting
in the Beamer," says an honest activist. |