Okay, so we’ve established that Cannabis has much milder side effects than those associated with prescription drugs for various childhood and adolescent ailments. But what about the long-term effects of marijuana?
Is Marijuana Really a Gateway Drug?
A very recent study, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in 2015, examined a group of men “from adolescence through emerging adulthood” (ages 15 to 26) in order to gauge whether Cannabis users “differed in terms of socioeconomic, social, and life satisfaction outcomes in their mid-30s.” The study also considered the “potential moderating effect of race” on outcomes.
The study found that “groups only differed in terms of partner and friend marijuana use.” (Unsurprisingly, “chronic marijuana users reported the highest proportions of both.”) There were generally no adverse effects on physical or emotional health, earning power, life satisfaction, or other outcomes. The study noted that “frequent and persistent marijuana use was associated with lower socioeconomic status (SES) for Black men only.”
While this finding indicates that higher arrest and incarceration rates among African-Americans are serious issues, it does not in any way imply that Cannabis is hazardous to health. As the ACLU notes, “Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana,” in spite of “roughly equal usage rates.” Racial prejudice is a problem in our society; but medical marijuana is not.
But what about marijuana being a gateway drug? In her letter to the Commissioner, Dr. Levy herself acknowledged that “none of the states with medical marijuana laws that report adolescent use rates through the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) have yet found an increase in gross use rates in the 2-3 years following implementation,” dispelling the myth that children and teenagers will become addicted to Cannabis once they start using it for medical purposes.
Furthermore, an additional 2015 study published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors found that “the 4 [studied] marijuana use trajectory groups were not significantly different in terms of their physical and mental health problems assessed in the mid-30s.” These “trajectory groups” included “early onset chronic users, late increasing users, adolescence-limited users, and low/nonusers.”
18