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Every Brain Matters
Cannabis Chaos Impact on Youth of Our Community
Our community should be aware that cannabis use by individuals under 21 can alter brain development, lead to addiction and increase mental illness.
The first Monday of our new year, the Marin IJ published the opinion piece by the LA Times editorial board, “Californians overwhelmingly supported legalizing marijuana. Why is it still a mess?” According to that piece, the “mess” in California is the “big as ever” illegal black market of “unregulated cannabis products”. While illegal markets are a mess, the other mess not even mentioned is that cannabis legalization has powerfully impacted youth mental and physical health throughout the nation.
Amen Clinics, which specializes in brain health, has a patient community blog about how cannabis increases the risk of depression and suicidal behavior among youth. It has also been found that cannabis use increases the risk of psychosis, which is the loss of connection with reality and includes both mild and severe symptoms of hallucination, paranoia and delusion.
In May 2021, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital published a study about how adolescent cannabis users experience cannabis hyperemesis, which is chronic nausea and vomiting. Research also reveals that among youth under age 25 cannabis use changes brain development – the adolescent brain is not fully developed until the age of 25.
Every Brain Matters Supports Freedom from Marijuana for Optimal Brain Health
This extensive brain impact is why in 2017 Aubree Adams founded Every Brain Matters (EBM), an alliance of organizations and individuals focused on education of the “dangers of marijuana and the drug culture expansion.”
“EBM is an umbrella of organizations that are speaking the truth about marijuana. Our alliance is growing because more and more organizations are popping up as more and more people are being harmed,” says Adams, who is the EBM director.
Importantly EBM’s target is not a drug war but it does believe adults need to be educated about marijuana so they can make informed decisions to protect their brains too. It is a “defense of brains” and it is working to decrease the public health impact of cannabis through education and support by its several groups. EBM has an advocacy group for individuals facing marijuana normalization in their communities, a support and recovery group that “understands and encourages healing and growth in response to marijuana use and addiction.”
Facts and science are critical to EBM’s work. “A report from the National Institute of Drug Abuse shows that thirty percent of cannabis users experience mild, moderate or severe cannabis use disorders, which is higher than opioids and alcohol. Even in low-concentrated form, cannabis is the worst offender because cannabis-induced psychosis can have the highest conversion rate to chronic psychosis and schizophrenia. If anyone would pay attention to the science of the facts, cannabis would not be promoted in any community,” states Adams.
EBM also distributes a monthly newsletter with important data and information from psychological and neurological experts. For example, the January issue included a very informative piece “How Does Marijuana Affect Our Brains?” by Crystal Collier, Ph.D. who is an expert on adolescent brain development. “What we do know is that for youth under the age of 25, marijuana use has negative effects on the developing brain,” states Dr. Collier.
Research Verifies Cannabis Impact on Youth
Decades of medical research on the public health impact of cannabis are accessible in the Library of the International Academy on The Science and Impact of Cannabis (IASIC). IASIC is an organization of international medical experts on cannabis that is a member of the EBM alliance and provides “accurate and honest information that guides decision-making.”
IASIC’s Library categories include addiction, anxiety, depression, psychosis and suicide and much of the research among these categories is focused on youth. For example the category of “Addiction/Cannabis Use Disorder” includes the following study brief: “Young people who use marijuana are 4 - 7 times more likely than adults to develop a drug problem.”
Regarding anxiety, the library includes a study about how regular adolescent users have a “3-fold increased risk for anxiety disorder compared to adults.” In addition, two of the studies in the “Depression” section are about the significant increase of depression and suicidality risk among adolescents. Then the section on Suicide includes two studies about how marijuana was the leading drug found among adolescents that had died from suicide.
Smokescreen: Inside Story of 21st Century Pot Industry
In addition to this vast amount of research, in April 2020 “Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know” by Kevin Sabet, Ph.D. was published. Sabet was the drug policy advisor of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations and is now the president and CEO of Smart Approach to Marijuana (SAM), a national organization of mental and public health professionals “dedicated to health-first approach to marijuana policy” that is also a member of the EBM alliance.
Through the expansive knowledge from his experience and hundreds of interviews, “Smokescreen” provides extremely deep insight into how the cannabis industry operates both financially and agriculturally. The book also provides an overview of the industry’s impact on public health throughout the nation. One chapter about how the “legalization of marijuana hasn’t curtailed the growth of the black market” is similar to what is described in the LA Times editorial. In the chapter, Sabet states “legalization has boosted the business of illicit dealers,” that is ironically cannabis legalization expands illegal black markets due to the growth of consumers.
The Cannabis Impact on Marin Community Youth
Regarding underage use of marijuana Marin has the highest county rate of the entire state of California. Data from the California Healthy Kids Survey shows that marijuana use by 9th graders is 23% higher and by 11th graders is 50% higher than their peers in any other state county.
The Marin Behavioral Health and Recovery Services (BHRS) provides substance use treatment to the county’s Medi-Cal beneficiaries and uninsured individuals. During 2021, among the youth under age 19 admitted to BHRS substance use outpatient treatment services 79% reported cannabis as their primary substance. This data, provided by BHRS Division Director Catherine Condon, shows that in Marin youth cannabis use does also lead to youth addiction.
The high rate of use among our youth has also led to youth deaths from overdose of other illicit drugs to which cannabis is the gateway. Among the parents of youth impacted by these elements, some are now activist and very public about their experiences.
“I keep hearing the cannabis industry’s twist on the truth especially when it comes to harm to youth. Their twist is to say that cannabis is natural, it doesn’t cause harm and it’s been around forever. Yes it has been around forever, however the industry has engineered today’s cannabis flowers to be as high as 35 percent of THC, which is not natural. In comparison, the pot that was smoked at Woodstock and my high school was 2 to 4 percent,” commented Michelle Leopold, who had a son who started smoking pot at 14.
Her son became quickly addicted and continued his underage access to marijuana with fake IDs and cannabis club memberships. Then during his first semester of college, he began experimenting with illicit drugs and then died from a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl.
Since then, Leopold has published a blog about her experience on EBM’s site and also developed the website WeAreNotAlone to provide local families with access to the “information, resources, and activism they need when dealing with the disease of addiction.” When she anonymously posted information about the site on the Redwood High School PTA’s Facebook page she coordinated, she then received a lot of comments, which also highlighted youth cannabis use.
“Some people messaged me anonymously and said, ‘Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m in a similar boat and I don’t know what to do. Thank you for sharing this information. It is really helpful.’ I also got comments that weren’t anonymous that said, ‘whoever you are I’m really grateful for this. This is who I am and my child is doing this,” said Leopold.
In addition to the development of her own site, Leopold also founded Marin Residents for Public Health Cannabis Policies with Laurie Dubin in 2020. The organization includes Marin residents, local health care professionals public health advocates, educators, parents and teens united in their concern about cannabis consequences on youth.
Leopold’s very sad parental experience is the same as Tori Kropp, another Marin mother whose son started his marijuana use at 17 and then overdosed on fentanyl at 19. She has also become public about her parental experience, which she published in a Marin Voice.
Kropp is also a member of Marin County’s Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board that includes individuals with “professional interest in, or personal commitment to, alleviating problems related to alcohol and drug use in the community.” Part of the Board’s purpose is to review the scope of drug problems in Marin and to educate the public about their nature.
Needed Public Education: Today’s Cannabis has Higher THC Potency
“So many parents are using the pot they grew up with as their frame of reference. That is, the pot made you get the munchies and that was it. That’s the biggest misunderstanding by parents that I keep hearing,” says Leopold.
The THC potency of cannabis is a critical element of much research because it has increased from an average of 4% in the 1980s to an average of 15% today in the cannabis flower that is smoked. And even more concerning is that edibles have THC potency of 90% and concentrates including shatter and dabs have THC potency of 99%.
Marin Health Youth Partnership’s site includes an article by Tracy Foose, MD from UCSF School of Medicine about how “This Is Not the Pot We Grew Up With.” In addition to data on the THC level norm of today’s cannabis, the article also includes descriptions of how it impacts brains and why there is a worry about teens:
“There is a rising concern that this younger population may shoulder a greater risk of lasting symptoms like these, in the form of psychotic illness. Recent public health studies in areas of Europe where high dose THC products have been legal and available for more than a decade are beginning to reveal that individuals who used cannabis regularly as teens are five times more likely to develop an irreversible psychotic illness like schizophrenia. That’s a 500% increase in the risk of developing a severe and debilitating chronic mental illness. Adolescent use is also linked to an increased risk of other harms including addiction and suicide,” writes Dr. Fosse.
Youth Voice About Potential Future of Cannabis Business Expansion in Marin
Interestingly, it’s not just adults that are concerned about the public health impact of cannabis. In July 2021, after graduating from Archie Williams High School, Sophia Taubman published a Marin Voice about how cannabis has “spread like wildfires devastating our state.”
“During high school, I observed students talking about using pot as though it was a self-prescribed antidepressant. It seemed like they smoked weed to self-medicate feelings of stress, anxiety, frustration or any other normal emotion,” she explains.
As a local youth she also explains that she’s “seen too many students in our community negatively impacted by marijuana. I am pleading with you and every other reader to consider my lived experiences and the youth perspective before dismissing any information that may be contrary to your previously held beliefs.”
She also includes commentary about the corporate cannabis business’s activity to have Sausalito’s city council add a measure for opening Marin’s first recreational cannabis dispensary to the November vote ballot. “The corporate cannabis business is sidestepping the public process — which would have included community education, town hall forums and a best-practices approach,” she adds.
It is quite remarkable that youth such as Taubman are equally aware of how the cannabis businesses are “sidestepping” responsibilities.
Cannabis Business and Recreational Dispensary
“I have been told four times by four different people in the cannabis business that my son died because I am a horrible parent,” states Leopold. The cannabis industry wants the public to believe that they hold no responsibility for their practices of marketing high THC products to youth. And that the burden falls solely on parents
A recent research letter published by JAMA Pediatrics found that the majority of California RCDs do not comply with the state’s underage access and marketing restrictions. So opening a recreational cannabis dispensary (RCD) in Sausalito has the potential to increase marijuana’s negative impact on our youth.
For the study, a research team from UC San Diego found that among the 700 RCDs in California 475 (67.9 %) failed to comply with age limits and only 82 (11.7 %) did conduct ID checks upon entry. When underage individuals enter RCDs they are exposed to marketing items that include advertisements, products, packages and paraphernalia. The study concludes, “[G]reater emphasis and resources must be dedicated to enforcement of random compliance checks to ensure that regulations aiming to minimize access and exposure to minors have intended effects.”
The study also includes information from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement that strongly recommends “strict enforcement of rules and regulations that limit access, marketing and advertising to youth.”
It is critical for our community to be aware that Proposition 64’s legalization of cannabis recreational use is titled “The Adult Use of Marijuana Act.” While it is supposed to be for adults across the state it is impacting youth, among which every brain does matter.
Community Organizations Find Need for Education and Actions
There are several Marin organizations focused on education and messaging regarding the adversity of cannabis among youth. For example, BHRS is partnering with Cannabis Decoded, a “Youth Marijuana Education Initiative” started by San Mateo County. The site’s campaign “aims to provide reliable, factual information so that young people have the tools they need to make informed decisions that impact their health and futures.”
The Marin Prevention Network, founded in 2010 to create a healthy environment for Marin youth, has a “Position Statement on Cannabis” focused on the “high rates among young people in Marin.” The statement’s conclusion of action recommendations includes establishing “a panel of public health experts, addiction-certified healthcare providers, prevention and treatment professionals, educators and others knowledgeable about cannabis use to provide ongoing policy recommendations on local cannabis policies.”