I'm 46 and smoke marijuana. But, I can't begin to believe that marijuana could be good for children...teenagers. Then again, I have a 15 yo son and I don't think kids should smoke until there 21. Like the drinking age...that doesn't work. But, what does?
Peace,
soul
By Bruce Mirken, AlterNet. Posted November 10, 2007.
If you follow the White House's twisted logic, the answer could be yes.
A new study from Switzerland raises the question: Might marijuana actually be good for teens? The answer is almost certainly no, but if one follows the logic used by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP, aka the Drug Czar's office), the answer would be, "In some ways, yes."
If that seems confusing, allow me to explain.
The Swiss study, just published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine was based on a survey of 5,263 students, aged 16-20. Scientists compared teens who smoked both cigarettes and marijuana, those who used only marijuana, and those who abstained from both substances. The results were surprising.
By pretty much all measures, the youths using both marijuana and tobacco were doing the worst. Compared to those using marijuana only, they had poorer grades, were less likely to finish school, more likely to be depressed and more likely to get drunk frequently. Their marijuana use was also much more frequent than the marijuana-only group, and they were much more likely to have started smoking marijuana before age 15.
But the marijuana-only teens were strikingly similar to the abstainers, with very few statistically significant differences. The marijuana smokers were more likely to skip school but had comparable grades and were just as likely to finish their schooling as the abstainers. The marijuana users had more "sensation-seeking" personalities, which -- not surprisingly -- translated to somewhat higher use of alcohol or other drugs than the abstainers. But the marijuana-only group's use of alcohol and other drugs was far lower than the marijuana/cigarette group.
And in some ways the teens using marijuana looked better than the abstainers. They had better peer relationships, were more likely to be involved in sports and more likely to be on an academic (as opposed to vocational) track in school.
(Click on the link below to read the entire article)
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