Pubdate: Tue, 30 Oct 2012
Source: Iowa State Daily (IA Edu)
Copyright: 2012 Iowa State Daily
Contact:  http://www.iowastatedaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1227
Author: Leah Hansen

DR. CHRISTIAN THURSTONE DISCUSSES MEDICAL MARIJUANA LEGISLATION IN COLORADO

On Monday night Megan Johnson, health promotion club, introduced Dr. 
Christian Thurstone to a packed Sun Room in the Memorial Union. With 
a round of applause and some hoots and hollers Thurstone took the stage.

"I don't think we should have medical marijuana," said Thurstone, 
addiction and adolescent psychiatrist. "We should have put our 
resources into getting the [Investigational New Drug] exemption and 
going that route. I think the best we can hope for now if going back 
to a care giver model and rejecting legalizing it outright."

His presentation slide show, titled "A plea for reefer sanity" 
discussed statistics and changes in youth behavior Thurstone has 
noticed while providing addiction and adolescent psychiatry services in Denver.

"A lot of the problem in the discussion of the drug control policy 
.. is this all or nothing thinking," Thurstone said. "It doesn't 
need to be this way. There is a third way - the science based way."

Thurstone quoted the National Survey of Drug Use and Health saying 60 
percent of new users of marijuana every year are younger than 18. He 
also pointed out 17 percent of those new users go on to become addicts.

"Would I say that the demographic of having college students in 
Denver [and] Boulder helps drive how much marijuana and marijuana 
dispensaries there are? I would say absolutely," Thurstone said. "If 
I were a business man, I would absolutely have my medical marijuana 
dispensary near high schools, community colleges, universities. 60 
percent of new users are under the age of 18. If you move that up to 
early 20s, almost all new users are in their early 20s or less."

Thurstone briefly began to describe the medical marijuana law in Colorado.

"A physician makes a recommendation for marijuana and then that form 
is submitted to the state and you get a 'red card' where you can buy 
marijuana, grow marijuana, or have someone grow it for you," Dr. 
Thurstone said.

Dr. Thurstone noted that he believes the earlier care giver model 
that was originally in place was more effective in his opinion. "If 
you rely on the first eight years of our medical marijuana law in 
Colorado, we had a care giver model," Dr. Thurstone said. "You had to 
grow it yourself or you could designate a care giver to grow six 
plants for you. No commercial distribution of marijuana. The Iowa 
proposals would have the dispensaries model." Another alternative 
that Dr. Thurstone mentioned is Sativex. Sativex is a drug that is 
currently available in Canada and parts of Europe that contains some 
of the active ingredients in marijuana but can be controlled more 
easily because it is not smoked, but sprayed up the nose.

"It's an oral spray of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the 
ingredients in marijuana, and cannabinol, another ingredient in 
marijuana, that makes the marijuana less addictive, less harsh than 
straight pure THC," Dr. Thurstone said. "I think we should push for 
that to be available on an exception basis before it has its final 
FDA approval ... That gives states a medicine that they can use and 
protects kids and public safety."

Hearing about Sativex also piqued the interest of some attendees at 
the lecture.

"Something I was very excited to hear about was a mouth spray 
containing THC and cannabinoids which could potentially be utilized 
as a low-risk alternative to smoked marijuana ... The introduction of 
such a product could really change the whole conversation," said Kaci 
McCleary, senior in psychology.

After reflecting on the Colorado law regarding medical marijuana, Dr. 
Thurstone had some suggestions for what Iowa should look for if they 
propose a similar law.

"I would recommend waiting until Sativex becomes widely available, 
until the science catches up with us," Dr. Thurstone said. "That's 
where I would put my energy because I think that would protect public 
safety, protect kids, and also give people benefit that would use it 
compassionately."

With all the differing opinions on the subject, being informed on the 
issues at hand is always useful.

"I think college students are our future so it's important for them 
to be up on these policies and what's happening," Dr. Thurstone said. 
"It's been shown that college students are much more likely to 
support outright legalization than older age groups and so I think 
it's important to have more communication, dialogue, and information 
around this."

Tonight's lecture gave students a chance to discover topics that they 
would like to dig into more on their own.

"In a class last year I was taught that marijuana was not addictive, 
yet the speaker said that there was an academic consensus that it 
was," McCleary said. "This contradiction is something I want to look 
into more, and it really confirms my belief that we need to find some 
way to get reliable information in order to make informed decisions 
about public policy."

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More Information

Dr. Christian Thurstone is board certified in child psychiatry and 
addiction psychiatry. He is the medical director of an adolescent 
substance treatment program. He is also an associate professor of 
psychiatry at the University of Colorado. He focuses on developing 
better treatments for adolescents with substance abuse and on the 
impact of medical marijuana legislation on youth.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom