Pubdate: Sun, 04 Jan 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Susan Shapiro
Note: Susan Shapiro is coauthor of the bestseller "Unhooked: How to 
Quit Anything" and author of the memoir "Lighting Up."

THE DARK SIDE OF MARIJUANA

As the Number of States Decriminalizing Pot Rises, Don't Lose Sight 
of the Harm Weed Can Do.

In 2014, our country went cannabis crazy, bringing to 18 the number 
of states decriminalizing pot. Colorado opened boutiques selling 
"mountain high suckers" in grape and butterscotch flavors and posted 
signs that proclaimed the state is "where prohibition ends and the 
fun begins." In my New York home, I'm glad that someone can carry up 
to 50 joints and no longer get thrown in the joint. Yet I worry that 
user-friendly laws and such recent screen glorifications as "High 
Maintenance" and "Kid Cannabis" send young people a message that 
getting stoned is cool and hilarious.

I know the dark side. I'm ambivalent about legalizing marijuana 
because I was addicted for 27 years. After starting to smoke weed at 
Bob Dylan concerts when Iwas13, I saw how it can make you say and do 
things that are provocative and perilous. I bought pot in bad 
neighborhoods at 3 a.m., confronted a dealer for selling me a dime 
bag of oregano, let shady pushers I barely knew deliver marijuana, 
like pizza, to my home. I mailed weed to my vacation spots and smoked 
a cocaine laced joint a bus driver offered when I was his only passenger.

Back then Willie Nelson songs, Cheech and Chong routines and "Fast 
Times at Ridgemont High's" Jeff Spicoli made getting high seem kooky 
and harmless. My reality was closer to Walter White's 
self-destruction from meth on TV's "Breaking Bad" and the delusional 
nightmares in the film "Requiem for a Dream." Everyone believed you 
couldn't get addicted to pot.

Turns out I could get hooked on carrot sticks. Marijuana became an 
extreme addiction for me. I'm not alone. Nearly17% of those who get 
high as teenagers will become addicted to marijuana, according to the 
2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental 
Disorders. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 
up to half of daily marijuana smokers become addicted- an estimated 
2.7 million people in the U.S.

The years I toked, I struggled with love and work, sometimes feeling 
suicidal. The brilliant addiction specialist who helped me give up 
pot a dozen years ago taught me that addicts self-medicate because 
underlying every substance problem he'd ever seen "is a deep 
depression that feels unbearable." One-on-one therapy helped me 
untangle what I was getting wasted to escape. Being drug-free saved 
my health, marriage and career. Within a year, my income tripled. I 
came to believe my doctor's adage: "When you quit a toxic habit you 
leave room for something beautiful to take its place."

In writing classes I teach in New York and L.A., students from many 
backgrounds confessed that they "smoked a bowl" or "got ripped" and 
then got in a car accident, fell on subway tracks, had a wallet or 
cell phone stolen, were sexually assaulted or had a physical 
altercation that landed them in the hospital or jail. My 
undergraduates loved the series "Weeds" and "Harold & Kumar" films 
and joked about being "cross-faded," simultaneously imbibing on 
alcohol and marijuana.

Yet I warn them that getting stoned greatly increases the likelihood 
of something bad happening, reminding them that pot blurs reality, 
reduces inhibitions- and regularly leads to tragedy. Consider two 
deaths in 2014 in Colorado that police linked to pot: a 47-year-old 
man who ate marijuana-infused candy and fatally shot his wife, and 
a19-year-old student who ingested a marijuana cookie and jumped to his death.

The weed of today is far stronger than in the past. President Obama 
admitted smoking marijuana as a teen and said it's no worse than 
alcohol but hopes his daughters will avoid "the bad habit." The new 
edible pot products can be10 times stronger than a traditional joint, 
says a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The strength of 
pot varies, and it's impossible to predict its effect. How you react 
to marijuana depends on your size, what you've eaten, the medications 
you take. As I tapered off, one hit from a pipe or bong could leave 
me reeling, as if I'd had five drinks.

Marijuana use doubles the risk of being in a car accident if you 
drive soon after smoking it, and it causes more car accidents than 
any other illicit drugs, according to Columbia University 
researchers. They found it contributed to12% of traffic deaths in the 
U.S. in 2010, triple the rate of a decade earlier.

The medical side effects are also significant. Smoking pot increases 
the risk of lung cancer 8%, according to British and New Zealand 
studies. It's associated with bronchitis, respiratory infections and 
increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, concluded a New 
England Journal study. Another 2014 study found frequent use by 
teenagers and young adults causes cognitive decline and decreases IQ. 
Marijuana essentially fries your brain.

Being a stoner was easy. Quitting was hard but gave me more to live 
for. Before jumping on the buzzed bandwagon in the new year, throwing 
a pot dessert party or voting to lift all restrictions across the 
nation, ask yourself and your kids: Is the high worth the lows? We 
shouldn't send pot smokers to prison, but they don't belong on 
pop-culture pedestals either.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom