There is a startling study out that shows that teenagers who smoke marijuana daily are over 60 percent less likely to complete high school and 60 percent less likely to graduate college. Even more startling is that these students are seven times more likely to attempt suicide. The study is published in the respected medical journal, The Lancet Psychiatry.
The study looked at 3,725 students from Australian and New Zealand until they reached the age of 30. They found “clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness.”
While I expect this study will be cited in the ongoing debate over legalization, it is worth noting that this involves student who use marijuana daily, which is an extremely high rate of use for most students. That level of drug use seems to me to reflect other problems that likely preexisted in the lives of the students or an environment that is not optimal. The data suggests that if a student uses cannabis less than monthly, he or she would have slightly lower odds of graduating high school or getting a college degree, compared to a person who doesn’t use at all. Other aspects are entirely unsurprising like the fact that even a monthly user has a four time greater likelihood of developing addiction to cannabis than someone who does not use it at all.
Then there is the interesting aspect of the drug being illegal. Since it is illegal, the authors of the study suggest that kids who use the drug are cross critical lines in violating the law — and associating with others who do so.
Source: Washington Post
Isn’t self-selection wonderful. Think how nice our cities will be once the suicides are cleaned up.
SWM, fingers crossed. Corbett has gone nasty while so far Wolfe has not. If people belive the Corbett ad lies he could stay (or the dems don’t get out their base)
lee, I think Corbett will be gone next year. Looks like the democrat is ahead.
Thanks Nick.
On my way out so couldn’t open link SWM. Corbett has said will veto. Hopefully enough votes to override of that happens. Thanks for the link
leej, The DEA has denied it’s them. I spoke w/ a source and he thinks it is the US Forest Service. You may remember the Feds have cut off water supplies to legal growers. The Forest Service does have some legit issues. But, it’s mostly w/ cartels growing illegally on US Forest land. One legit grower w/ the no street value crop claims she was not on govt., property. It is still @ this point a mystery. There are renegade local cops in some areas but as I said, Mendocino County has an enlightened Sheriff. I’ll keep you updated.
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/09/12/pa-lawmakers-consider-medical-marijuana-next-week/ Maybe PA will have it soon, Lee.
Ah I bet those who believe in conspiracy theories listen to Art Bell.
Leej it’s true about those taking narcotics for severe chronic pain are not usually addicted. When I have a severe flare up, I take a very strong and effective muscle relaxer, it doesn’t make me sleepy in the least. If I take it when I suspect I’m going to have a flare up, I sometime times will get drowsy. But during active severe pain it doesn’t cause drowsiness at all. Also I never ever crave the med between bouts of flare ups or use it to fall asleep. In good periods between flare ups I take only anti inflammatories.
leej, This company does contract work for the Feds. There is no one else who would spend this money except for the cartels. Only the cartels and the Feds are opposed to medical cannabis in Ca. I know it was hard for you to believe that the Obama US attorney in San Diego, Laura Duffy, shut down all the dispensaries in San Diego County. She is an Obama appointee. That’s how I got involved w/ a network of infirmed people and made trips to Orange and LA Counties to get them their meds. Cancer patients, Parkinson’s patients, you know the usual pot heads. It does not comport w/ your political beliefs, but this Administration is hostile to medical cannabis. “The truth shall make you free.”
“It has to be the Feds”…. Oh if only assumptions and assertions were pennies, someone would be rich.
Nick if it is a private force what does it have to do with the president and AG? (and agree heartless as well as waste of resources, the county and the crop)
Need proof before you’re believed.
There is a disturbing story out of Mendocino County. A paramilitary private police force, Lear Asset Management, has been helicoptering into legal medicinal cannabis sites and cutting down plants. They will not say for whom they are working but it has to be the Feds. There is a long cooperative history of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Dept. w/ legal growers. They cut sown some plants from a grower that has NO STREET VALUE. It is very low in THC but has the active ingredient used to help children w/ uncontrollable epileptic seizures. This is a lawless and heartless President and Attorney General.
What would you rather them do for fun – meth?
The study is suspect and probably can’t be replicated accurately enough to be consistently valid or even reliable – like a lot of the other “studies” we’ve seen come unglued after a year or two (when someone independent finally got around to trying to replicate the results and it turned out the original study was fraudulent and manipulated for personal gain, publication in some prestigious journal, making a name for oneself and other such nonsense).
The sample size is way too small to come up with anything definitive.
Beside the fact that it’s not a GLOBAL study, the results only apply there anyway.
And your point Paul? No study that studies more then maybe a few h undred, depending on the time the researchers have, ever can say, yes we talked personally to 100 million people and that is how we got our number. If you want you canlook up the numbers of those who have trigeminal and other neuralgias, Lupus, MS, phantom pain, CRPS, rheumatoid arthritis, I could go on and on with disorders with pain as the mian or sole complaint. You would get to 100 million fairly easily (and that does not include those who have chronic disabling low back pain and other pain that is not from a primary illness or disorder.
leejcaroll – I think the IOM, writers of the report, over-estimated to make a point which was legitimate. Chronic pain sufferers are being underserved. However, they still used an estimate. Supposedly the IOM is made up of scientists so they could get hard numbers, those are available.
(SWM- very few people who take narcotics for chronic pain become addicted and often those who do have addiction histories to begin with. Some may become physically dependent but that is quote different from addiction I do not know about mm because they are essentially barred from studying it to any good degree since they schedule ! it but this false alarm about addiction is erroreous as it pertains to those on opiods for medical purposes..)
I notice here on Planet Earth that few people understand that the inhalation of smoke is bad for a human. It seems pretty obvious. I wonder why Americans do not put the cause of death on a Death Certificate : tobacco. Some poor schmuck who smoked since age 12, dies at age 62 of lung cancer and the doctor writes down on the Death Certificate “respiratory failure” or some such. If was a suicide by gun he would write down “death by gunshot wound”. Of course, after the doctor fills out the Death Certificate he goes out to the suicide bucket outside the outer door and smokes his cigarette. Yeah, I notice that even doctors in America smoke. Went in dumb, come out dumb, too. That is what the Ragin Cajun says. I notice on the blog that there is much yak about marijuana but nothing about the danger of dirt going down the lung from smoking that stuff. I looked up the right word in the dictionary on the computer and it says: oblivious.
Statistically, men prefer cannabis by ~15%. Although that is smoking. Edibles the difference is less than 5%. The figures come from the HHS national study. Women prefer pills to snorting, smoking and injecting. This comports w/ my observations in dispensaries. There are always more men than woman purchasing cannabis. Bud Tenders[that’s what they call themselves, and they get tips!] tell me women go right toward the edibles and drinkables when they come into the dispensary.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/10/females-tolerance-marijua_n_5784022.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063 “Despite a shortage of research on the topic, it’s been suggested that drugs affect men and women differently. And because of the recent legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington and medical marijuana in 23 states, it’s now more important than ever that women understand how THC affects their body chemistry specifically.
Researchers at Washington State University have found evidence indicating that females may build up a tolerance to marijuana more easily than males do. While it’s not entirely predictive, people with an increased tolerance of a drug are more likely to become addicted to it — which means women may want to think twice before matching a man joint for joint.”