Cultural Survival Skills

Drug Abuse Contagion in America #2: Medical Marijuana

Just as there is a poor research-base on the effectiveness of medical marijuana, so is there a poor-research base on the rate of diversion of prescribed medical marijuana for illegal consumption among adults and teens.

If you search the internet you will observe a mixture of findings. Often this is due to poor research design (questionnaire studies, small numbers of subjects, few double-blind studies, and the use of weak anecdotal evidence). Anecdotal studies involve individuals simply reporting levels of symptom relief, without traditional guards against expectations, i.e., placebo effects.

I believe this probable lack of validity in many findings, and obvious reliability (conflicting findings) in the relevant research literature can be related to the speed with which medical marijuana has been legalized on the basis of very poor research evidence in the first place.

In any event, America in now flooding itself with another mind-altering drug with well-know negative side effects for recreational users and particularly bad side effects for children and teens. Children and teens for whom the increased availability of marijuana in their proximity must be an increasing temptation.

Perhaps beneficial marijuana chemicals (over 100)  can be isolated, refined and put into pill form, without the typical high that leads to its abuse. Presently there is some progress in this area.

I will present more detailed information on the efficacy of medical marijuana in the near future.

For now, I present the following as a basis for caution.

A wisdom and faith-based virtue that is not  in evidence in America’s rush to the legalization of marijuana, pornography or gambling.  All are historically named vices previously judged to  greatly damage society.

A growing body of evidence supports this grave concern.

Medical marijuana may have benefits, but there is good reason to suspect that in cultivated leaf form and its increasingly easy access, it is a catalyst to further abuse.

Please read the following short articles.

http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(12)00286-9/abstract

The following article is documentation of the harms of marijuana use to teens.

https://www.verywell.com/teens-in-treatment-report-marijuana-withdrawal-symptoms-67785

V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D., 11/19/16

Professor Emeritus of Psychology

Licensed Health Care Professional in Psychology

Tags: Drug Abuse Contagion in America #2: Medical Marijuana, Medical Marijuana Diversion to Abusers, Medical Marijuana Increasing Teen Abuse?, Poor Current Research on Medical Marijuana, V. Thomas Mawhinney Ph.D., VTM

This entry was posted on November 29, 2016 at 4:31 PM and is filed under Boiling the American Frog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.