Posted on Feb 12, 2007 | by Staff

McLEAN, Va. (BP)--In an article titled “Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil,” USA Today warned against even experimenting with the nation’s most widely used illegal drug.

“Studies have shown that when regular pot smokers quit, they do experience withdrawal symptoms, a characteristic used to predict addictiveness,” reporter Rita Rubin wrote Feb. 6 in the prominently displayed article. “Most users of more addictive drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, started with marijuana, scientists say, and the earlier they started, the greater their risk of becoming addicted.”

The typically left-leaning paper combined anecdotal evidence of wrecked lives, references to studies and warnings from health professionals to underscore its point that the drug is too dangerous to take lightly.

USA Today quoted H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, who said “indisputable data” shows that smoking marijuana affects neuropsychological functioning such as hand-eye coordination, reaction time and memory.

“All of the studies clearly show the earlier someone starts taking marijuana, the greater their vulnerability to addiction disorders and psychiatric disorders,” another expert, Yasmin Hurd, told the newspaper. “I’m so shocked still that so many parents are not considering enough the dangers of early drug use.”

Hurd is a professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and biological chemistry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

USA Today noted that although marijuana use among teens declined slightly from 2005 to 2006, it’s still a more commonly used substance than it was 15 years ago.

In 2006, 11.7 percent of eighth-graders admitted using marijuana during the past year, compared to 6.2 percent of eighth-graders in 1991, according to figures released by the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health that were cited by the paper. The number rose to 31.5 percent of 12th-graders in 2006 compared to 23.9 percent in 1991.

The newspaper said the marijuana used today is more potent and more toxic than it was in the 1970s, with plants today containing 15 percent THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, compared to 2 percent back then.

Research indicates marijuana users are significantly less satisfied with the quality of their lives than non-users, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse told USA Today.

One of the examples the paper used to illustrate that point was Rachel Kinsey, a 24-year-old who started using marijuana at 15 before moving on to ecstasy, cocaine and heroin by age 18. She moved in with her boyfriend and his father, who both used heroin, and at 19 she was pregnant.

After treatment for her addiction, Kinsey returned to drug abuse, got in trouble with the law and returned to treatment before slowly getting her life back on track. She told USA Today that if she could start again, she never would have used marijuana.

“You never know where it’s going to lead you,” she said. “You don’t know that you’re not going to become an addict, so it’s not worth the risk.”

USA Today’s article recounting the negative consequences of marijuana comes as states continue to debate whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes. Last fall, voters in Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota voted against measures that would have legalized marijuana use, but proponents of the drug continue their push in other parts of the country.

“Marijuana is a very dangerous drug. Anything we can do to help prevent access to it will result in many lives being spared its destructive effects,” Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press after last fall’s ballot initiatives.

Duke called the medical marijuana issue the Trojan Horse of the marijuana legalization movement, and he urged government officials to take a stronger stand against the drug.

“I repeat my call for better enforcement of our drug laws, better treatment programs for people using drugs, more anti-drug education programs and harsher penalties for those who distribute drugs,” Duke said.
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Compiled by Erin Roach.