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Proudly supporting ABUSE Preventative Education for our youth! kids think marijuana is safe, but pot is harmful to their developing brains
Have you heard about the group of third graders in Sonora, California who were caught smoking marijuana in the elementary school bathroom? Yup. It happened last week. You can read about it here. The police chief said the 8 and 9 year-olds are too young to face criminal charges.
It’ s an unusual case, thank goodness, because drug use among the early tween set is far from common. In older tweens, however, it’ s a bit more common. The University of Michigan’ s Monitoring the Future study surveyed 40,000 students and found that there was a slight increase in the number of kids using drugs. More and more kids also believe that pot isn’ t dangerous.
They’ re wrong.
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Researchers found approximately 13 % of 8th graders used marijuana. That number jumped to 30 % of 10th graders and 36 % in 12th grade.
While the number of tokers has increased, the number of kids who think pot is risky has decreased. A full 60 % believe it is harmless, which researchers at the National Institutes of Health have shown may be the result of campaigns in several states to legalize marijuana.
What is okay for adults, however, may not be okay for tweens and teens( despite their protests to the contrary) and scientific
studies shows that pot is no exception.
Marijuana impacts the developing brain of kids differently than it impacts the adult brain. Many researchers are making the case that kids and marijuana do not belong together.
“ It’ s the absolute worst time [ to smoke marijuana ],” Krista Lisdahl, director of the brain imaging and neuropsychology lab at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, told NPR.
They likely have no idea how smoking pot can impact memory processing as well as the ability to control emotions. A tween or teen’ s brain absorbs marijuana differently than a fully developed brain.
“[ F ] or adolescents, these are issues that they struggle with anyway because of their developmental period,” said Kathy Meyers, a senior research scientist at Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia, when interviewed by WHYY. She said the perception that marijuana can relieve symptoms for people does not mean that it is a medicine and does not mean that it is harmless.
Kids need to know that there are shortterm and long-term effects that come with smoking pot. The short-term impact can mean not making the play in the big game or impacting GPA because it’ s harder to remember something for a test.
12 | Idaho Spring / Summer 2014 | abusemagazine. org
Source: http:// kidshealth. org / kid / grow / drugs _ alcohol / know _ drugs _ marijuana. html