Pubdate: Mon, 13 Apr 2015
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Erin Ellis

SHOPS CLOUD TRUTH ABOUT POT, SAYS EXPERT

Use can affect brain development, he cautions

Medical marijuana shops popping up all over Metro Vancouver are giving
parents and their children the wrong impression about weed, says an
addictions specialist.

"Using the term 'medical' is giving a false impression to people -
parents and kids," says Dr. Siavash Jafari, who works out of several
Vancouver Coastal Health clinics in Vancouver and also the Burnaby
Centre for Mental Health and Addiction.

"To say 'medical' means it is supported by the medical community. It
is not. That's a misconception among the public." he says.

"Parents feel that it's not dangerous so they don't talk to their kids
about it."

The scientific evidence is simply not there for most health claims
made by dispensaries, he says, with the exception of its use for
patients in palliative care.

Jafari says he routinely talks to patients with health problems who
don't even think to mention how much marijuana they smoke - or how
often - because they have been convinced that it's a natural, harmless
herb.

"They don't even consider the health issues. It affects them from
brain to toe."

Far less addictive than heroin or tobacco, notes Jafari, studies show
10 per cent of people who use it regularly will become dependent on
it. Problems increase with the amount consumed over time, he added,
with little risk to someone who smokes weed once or twice a year, for
instance.

Confusion over what's safe and what's not is the topic of a public
forum being held Tuesday for parents and teenagers. It is sponsored by
the Vancouver school board, Vancouver Coastal Health and SACY, the
school board's substance use prevention initiative.

The forum was prompted by the lack of information for parents and
because one of the largest celebrations of cannabis culture in North
America takes place outside the Vancouver Art Gallery every April 20:
the 4/20 "smoke out."

Panelist Joy Johnson, vicepresident of research at Simon Fraser
University, says teenagers want to hear factual information about
marijuana but often have a hard time finding it. First off, it's still
illegal - a fact that gets lost as dozens of medical
marijuanadispensaries have opened across the city in the last year.

"I'll be frank, we've lost our credibility because young people go
home and see their parents smoking it," says Johnson.

The 'just-say-no' approach doesn't work, she says, and should be
replaced with a rational conversation about the effect cannabis can
have on the human brain, which continues to develop into the early
20s.

"We've had pretty good public health messaging in terms of alcohol
consumption. We tell kids not to drink and drive, to not binge drink,
to watch the amount they're drinking. I don't think we've had very
good messaging about marijuana, in part because we don't have a lot of
great evidence. But one of the things we do know is that you should
delay use because of brain development."

A study by researchers from Harvard Medical School published this
month concluded that participants who started smoking marijuana
regularly before the age of 16 had lower scores on a test used to
determine brain damage than subjects who started later and people who
had never smoked.

Teens and Cannabis, a free public forum, will be held Tuesday from 7-9
p.m. in the auditorium of Vancouver Technical Secondary School at 2600
East Broadway.
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MAP posted-by: Matt