Drug report links pot to teen depression
Pastor Dale Morgan
Drug report links pot to teen depression*
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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% compared with 12%, 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%, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once
a month over a year-long period are three times more likely to have
suicidal thoughts than non-users, 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% compared with 3%.
Experts who have worked with children say there's nothing harmless about
marijuana.
"I've seen many, many kids' lives negatively impacted and taken off
track because of marijuana," said Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, director of
adolescent services for Phoenix House treatment centers in California.
"It's somewhat Russian roulette. There are so many factors, emotional,
psychological, biological. You can't predict the experimentation and how
it will impact a kid."
Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project,
an organization that advocates the decriminalization of marijuana,
called the study "an absolutely dishonest report, deliberately confusing
correlation with causation."
"This very week the British government's official scientific advisers on
illegal drugs issued a report saying they are 'unconvinced that there is
a causal relationship between the use of cannabis and any affective
disorder,' such as depression, he said.
The drug control policy office analyzed about a dozen studies looking at
marijuana use, including research by the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration.
Overall, marijuana use among teens has decreased 25% since 2001, down to
about 2.3 million kids who used pot at least once a month, the drug
control office said.
While the drop is encouraging, Walters appealed to parents to recognize
signs of possible drug use and depression.
"It's not something you look the other way about when your teen starts
appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family,
losing interest in daily activities," Walters said. "Find out what's
wrong."