Heritage Foundation Busts Marijuana Myths

Marijuana

Last week the Heritage Foundation released a concise summary of seven common myths about marijuana and why each one is incorrect.

The myths Heritage Foundation addresses are:

  • Myth #1: Marijuana is harmless and non-addictive.
  • Myth #2: Smoked or eaten marijuana is medicine.
  • Myth #3: Countless people are behind bars simply for smoking marijuana.
  • Myth #4: The legality of alcohol and tobacco strengthen the case for legal marijuana.
  • Myth #5: Legal marijuana will solve the government’s budgetary problems.
  • Myth #6: Portugal and Holland provide successful models of legalization.
  • Myth #7: Prevention, intervention, and treatment are doomed to fail—So why try?

These are common myths–many of which we have discussed on our blog in the past. One of our most popular blog posts of all time tackles questions concerning the number of people who have died from marijuana, and we recently wrote about a study released a few weeks ago demonstrating that even casual marijuana-use can cause brain damage.

Heritage Foundation writes:

“[M]arijuana is not as dangerous as cocaine or heroin, but calling it harmless or non-addictive denies very clear science embraced by every major medical association that has studied the issue. . . .

“Mental health researchers are also noting the significant marijuana connection with schizophrenia, and educators are seeing how persistent marijuana use can blunt academic motivation and significantly reduce IQ by up to eight points, according to a very large recent study in New Zealand.”

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Marijuana may be a lot of things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

Click here to read Heritage Foundation’s full list of marijuana myths.

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New Study: Even Casual Marijuana-Use Damages Brain

Marijuana

The popular notion that marijuana is largely harmless has led many people to shrug at efforts to legalize the drug across the country. A groundbreaking study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, however, shows that even casual marijuana-use carries serious implications.

The Boston Globe reports:

Young adults who occasionally smoke marijuana show abnormalities in two key areas of their brain related to emotion, motivation, and decision making, raising concerns that they could be damaging their developing minds at a critical time, according to a new study by Boston researchers.

Other studies have revealed brain changes among heavy marijuana users, but this research is believed to be the first to demonstrate such abnormalities in young, casual smokers.

The study examined forty young adults ages 18 to 25. Of the forty participants, half reported using marijuana at least once a week while the other half reported not having used marijuana in the past year as well as indicating they had smoked marijuana fewer than five times in their lives. This allowed researchers to compare casual marijuana users with non-users.

What they found was marijuana-use affects brain development–even among casual users–and that the amount of marijuana a casual user smoked directly affected the brain, with heavier users showing more brain abnormalities.

As we have written before, chronic or heavy marijuana use has been linked to deficiencies in cognitive function, schizophrenia, stroke, and even death. This latest study, however, takes that research a step further, linking even moderate marijuana-use with negative consequences.

This raises a serious question: If even casual marijuana use has negative effects on the brain, how can marijuana be used safely as medicine? If using marijuana as little as a few times a week affects a person’s emotions and impairs their judgment, how can a person use “medical” marijuana at all without suffering cognitively?

(more…)

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