Marijuana use has long been controversial, with advocates insisting that it’s no more dangerous than cigarettes or alcohol, substances that have long been legal and readily available. On the other side, some experts warn that marijuana is a dangerous drug that adversely affects the brain and impacts a variety of functions.
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus took a look at the myths surrounding the substance in a June 24, 2014 opinion piece. Marcus cited information provided by Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), who sees legalizing marijuana as a risky social experiment, basing her concern on the fact that we simply don’t know if marijuana is no more dangerous than tobacco and alcohol. And even if it isn’t, those legal substances are harmful.
The Dangers of Legal Drugs
“Legal drugs are the main problem that we have in our country as it relates to morbidity and mortality,” Volkow said in an interview on the National Institutes of Health campus. “Many more people die of tobacco than all of the drugs together. Many more people die of alcohol than all of the illicit drugs together … And it’s not because they are more dangerous or addictive. Not at all — they are less dangerous. It’s because they are legal. The legalization process generates a much greater exposure of people and hence of negative consequences that will emerge.”
Even as Colorado and Washington state have legalized marijuana for recreational use, Volkow is asking, “Can we as a country afford to have a third legal drug?” The two we have already cost the country in healthcare dollars, accidents and lost productivity.
“The evidence on the supposed safety of marijuana — particularly marijuana in its modern, far more potent form — is far from clear enough to take this leap,” The Washington Post piece states.
Wishful Thinking vs. Hard Facts
Since almost the beginning of time, humans have been searching for a substance that would make them feel good and have no negative consequences. Treatment centers and recovery support groups are full of people who thought they could use a particular drug (legal or not) and experience the resulting high while skirting the consequences. But there ARE always consequences. When you are intoxicated, your motor coordination decreases. When you repeatedly use marijuana, there is an increased risk for addiction. And if you are an adolescent and you are taking marijuana, there is a higher increased risk for addiction and there is also a higher risk for long-lasting decreases in cognitive capacity (aka a lowering of IQ), according to NIDA.
For teens that claim that cigarettes are worse for them than pot smoking, Volkow vehemently disagrees. “Nicotine does not interfere with cognitive ability. So if you are an adolescent and you are smoking marijuana and going to school, it’s going to interfere with your capacity to learn. So what is worse, as an adolescent right now? To have basically something that is jeopardizing your development educationally or to smoke a cigarette that, when you are 60 years of age, is going to lead to impaired pulmonary function and perhaps cancer? … I would argue that you do not want to mess with your cognitive capacity, that that is a very large price to pay.”
Marijuana & the Brain
In July 2014, NIDA’s Science Spotlight highlighted new research that shows that regular marijuana users exhibit impairments in the brain’s ability to respond to dopamine – a brain chemical that is involved in reward, among other functions.
While it’s true that this research can’t determine if regular marijuana use causes deficits in brain reward centers — or if users take marijuana to compensate for less reactive dopamine systems — these results could help explain why regular marijuana users are more prone towards depression, anxiety, irritability and increased sensitivity to stress. The study was authored by NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow and was supported by the intramural research program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Another recent study found that marijuana abusers show lower positive and higher negative emotionality scores than controls, which is consistent, on one hand, with lower reward sensitivity and motivation and, on the other hand, with increased stress reactivity and irritability. The study was submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America in June 2014 and reviewed by Harvard University Medical School and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
The study cites the move to legalize marijuana as a foundational cause for the urgency to investigate effects of chronic marijuana in the human brain.
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