To protect teens’ health, marijuana should not be legalized, says American Academy of Pediatrics

Recently, the country’s most prominent group of pediatricians issued a policy statement that opposes marijuana legalization and advocates for policies to help minimize the drug’s harmful effects on children and adolescents. The new statement, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, was written in response to recent research on adolescent brain development and the biology of addiction, as well as a changing national climate on marijuana laws.

I spoke with Seth Ammerman, MD, an adolescent medicine specialist and the lead author of the new statement and accompanying technical report. Ammerman studies substance-use issues in youth and also has extensive experience working with at-risk young people, in part through his role as medical director of our hospital’s Adolescent Health Van.

“The national trend is definitely toward more medical marijuana, and also toward legalization for adults,” he said. “This trend can definitely affect kids, so it was really important for the Academy to have a voice, to be working on a national conversation about this.”

During our conversation, Ammerman explained some of the latest research that has motivated the AAP’s stance against marijuana legalization:

In the past decade, we’ve learned that brain development doesn’t finish until one’s early to mid-20s, and substance use can alter the developing brain. There are a few ways we know this: One, there’s clear evidence that the younger you start using drugs regularly, the more likely you are to become addicted. This is true for alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, among others. For those who put off substance use until their late teens or early 20s, addiction rates are significantly lower.

We also know that the developing brain is very vulnerable to substance use. One in 10 adolescents who use marijuana become addicted. That means that 90 percent won’t — which is the good news — but the problem is we can’t predict which 10 percent will develop addiction.

We also have a lot of research about the adverse effects of marijuana use. Heavy users fare worse in many ways: their cognitive levels fall, they are less likely to finish high school or attend college, and they tend to suffer more from depression. Most users are not heavy users, but again, we can’t predict who will fall into this category.

The AAP is also in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, replacing current criminal penalties with lesser criminal or civil penalties and drug treatment. This is an especially important step to reduce the long-term damage to educational and job opportunities that currently comes with marijuana arrests, Ammerman said, adding: “There is a significant problem of racial inequity associated with marijuana arrests: minorities are way over-arrested and their lives are messed up because of marijuana arrests. It’s a very important step to say we need to help kids, not punish them.”

Via Scope