Pubdate: Wed, 10 Sep 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Christopher Ingraham
Page: A3
Note: Excerpted from Wonkblog, at washingtonpost.com/wonkblog.
Cited: http://drugsense.org/url/YrpHq1ck Lancet Psychiatry

STUDY: BAD OUTCOMES FOR TEEN POT USERS

Daily Smokers Found to Be Less Likely to Finish High School

Teenagers who smoke marijuana daily are more than 60 percent less 
likely to complete high school than those who never use. They're also 
60 percent less likely to graduate from college and seven times as 
likely to attempt suicide, says a new study of adolescent cannabis 
use Tuesday in the Lancet Psychiatry, a British journal of health research.

Researchers gathered data on the frequency of cannabis use among 
3,725 students from Australia and New Zealand and looked at the 
students' developmental outcomes up to the age of 30. They found 
"clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use 
during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, even 
after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, 
sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness."

Significantly, they found that the risks of negative outcomes 
increased with the frequency of cannabis use. But in a conference 
call, study co-author Edmund Silins said that the relationship 
between cannabis use and negative outcomes is significant even at low 
levels of use, as in less than monthly, and that "the results suggest 
that there may not be a threshold where use can be deemed safe" for teens.

According to the study, there are significant relationships between 
cannabis use and high school graduation, college graduation, suicide 
attempts, cannabis dependency and other illicit drug use.

For instance, a person who uses cannabis less than monthly would have 
slightly lower odds of graduating from high school or getting a 
college degree compared with a person who doesn't use at all. 
Increased use further decreases this likelihood, the study says. On 
the other hand, a person who uses cannabis monthly would be about 
four times as likely to become dependent on cannabis as a person who 
doesn't use at all.

The findings are likely to be cited by opponents of liberalized 
marijuana laws, such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy 
and the Smart Approaches to Marijuana project. But it is important to 
put them in proper context.

First, the causality isn't 100 percent clear. The researchers did a 
painstaking job of trying to account for a number of confounding 
factors. But when it comes to the educational outcomes, there are a 
lot of factors at play. For instance, if a teacher knows or even 
suspects that a certain student is using drugs, that may predispose 
the teacher against that student. "Teachers are very likely to 
stigmatize drug users," said Joseph Palamar, coauthor of another 
recent study comparing teen marijuana and alcohol use. "That 
stereotype gives kids problems, and that kid's not going to want to 
go to class."

Palamar also said that because marijuana "is an illegal drug, you 
have to buy it in an illegal manner, and then you're exposed to the 
black market. Marijuana use is affiliating you with other kids, some 
of whom might be problematic - people more likely to question 
authority. You become affiliated with things that might have a 
negative impact on your education."

Moreover, Palamar's research shows that because of marijuana's legal 
status, teen cannabis users are much more likely to get into trouble 
with the police than teen alcohol users. And in many cases, if you 
have a drug conviction on your record you become ineligible for 
college aid. "If you get caught with drugs, you're not able to go to 
college," he said.

In other words, many of the problems associated with teen cannabis 
use likely are a function of the drug's illegal status. But the study 
lends support for efforts to keep the drug out of the hands of teens 
and makes a case for closely monitoring adolescent marijuana use in 
states that legalize it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom