Pubdate: Fri, 04 Apr 2014
Source: Times, The (Fairfax County, VA)
Copyright: 2014 Times Community Newspapers
Contact: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/submissions/editor.php
Website: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4354
Author: Greg McDonald

FAIRFAX ANTIDRUG GROUP WARNS OF MARIJUANA'S DANGERS

Average THC Levels Up 400 Percent in Last Eight Years, Expert Says

Although it has been decriminalized and even made quasi-legal in some 
states, the dangers of marijuana have not gone away.

That was the message March 27 in Annandale at a presentation made by 
the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County titled "Marijuana 
Harmless? Think Again."

Community leaders including health care professionals, counselors and 
law enforcement officials joined parents and students who related 
their own unfortunate experiences with marijuana and other drugs.

"My life is still being written," said Chris Leibowitz, 26, of 
battling a marijuana addiction that began at age 13 and developed 
into an addiction to painkillers and eventually heroin. "I knew 
something was wrong. I wasn't denying it," he said. "If you have ever 
set a line in the sand and then crossed it, then set another one and 
crossed that one, you are out of control and deep down you know it. 
You just have to act on that knowledge."

Lori Shapiro of Fairfax said her son Jacob, 21, also was out of 
control with a drug addiction that she says began with marijuana.

Shapiro said that when her son began using marijuana in college his 
grades began to drop, his interest in sports began to wane, and he 
withdrew from his family.

"He became a totally different kid," she said. "My husband worked for 
the DEA and we thought we had him brainwashed, but that's how wrong we were."

Shapiro said that beginning with marijuana use, her son soon 
graduated to taking ecstasy, ketamine, opium and cocaine, and even 
chugging cough syrup.

"In July of 2011, he attempted suicide by taking 20 Xanax pills," she 
said. "Luckily he was unsuccessful and stayed five days in the mental 
ward of a Fairfax County hospital instead."

Jacob Shapiro is in his third year of recovery, and his mother said 
marijuana was to blame for his descent into harder drugs. "Marijuana 
was at the core of all this," she said. "That's what he started with, 
and now you know that this drug is not harmless."

Dr. William Hauda, an emergency physician at Inova Fairfax Hospital 
Center, concurs.

"Cannabinoid receptors are greatest during adolescence," he said. 
"And persistent marijuana use is associated with a greater decline in 
cognitive ability. Physiologically, teens should not be using marijuana."

According to Jim Cox of the narcotics squad of the Fairfax County 
Police Department, marijuana today has been manipulated and 
genetically engineered to produce much higher levels of the chemical 
tetrahydrocannabinol, making its addictive properties much more of a 
danger than marijuana from the 1980s or 1990s.

"Today, marijuana plants can contain as much as 33 percent THC," he 
said. "And kids are not just smoking THC. They find other ways to 
ingest it, such as using 'marijuana butter' to make Rice Krispies treats with."

According to George Young, director of outpatient services at the 
Northern Virginia National Counseling Group, average levels of THC in 
marijuana have increased more than 400 percent in just the last eight years.

"THC in marijuana is measured in nanograms," he said. In 2006, the 
average nanogram level was 162. In 2014, it is 693."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom