Another Reason to Just Say No

Laws legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes or just plain old personal use are gaining momentum. Like nicotine in cigarettes and alcohol in adult beverages the stuff in marijuana may become just another drug one can choose to use or abuse like cigarettes and alcohol. I get all the reasons for legalization and regulation so there is no argument from me here. I am just writing this because if it is inevitable that this drug becomes legally available there will still continue to be valid reasons to just say no. I could ask the question here about whether or not you know or knew anyone whose lives have been negatively affected by legal drugs like cigarettes and alcohol. Maybe you don’t know anyone that has suffered from the ill effects of drinking and smoking with alcoholism or lung cancer, but what about the other side of the coin, a family or friend devastated by a death or injury resulting from DUI? If any of your answers are similar to mine then these problems with legal drugs may hit pretty close to home.

I recently read about a study that linked the usage of marijuana to the onset of schizophrenia, a serious form of mental illness that’s onset is often seen one’s teens or early 20s, and memory disorders. This study involved nearly 100 teens between ages 16 and 17 who were split into four groups: those who had used marijuana in the past, those who had not, schizophrenia patients who had never used marijuana, and schizophrenia patients who had. The participants reported not abusing any drugs other than marijuana. Researchers performed MRI scans on the participants' brains and compared various anatomical structures; the healthy former marijuana smokers and the schizophrenic participants who had smoked marijuana both showed shrinkage of regions in the brain connected with working memory compared to the healthy and schizophrenic teens who had not used marijuana. Next the researchers tested the participants and found that the shrinkage had real effects; when the participants took memory tests, the healthy volunteers who never used marijuana scored 37 times higher on average than those who had smoked pot, and the schizophrenic patients who hadn't used marijuana scored four times higher than their schizophrenic counterparts who had.

These results are especially troubling for youth with mental health issues, or that may be at greater risk of them and to me are another reason to just say no.