Pubdate: Thu, 21 May 2015
Source: Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Gazette
Contact: http://www.gazette.com/sections/opinion/submitletter/
Website: http://www.gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/165
Authors: David W. Murray and John P. Walters
Note: John P. Walters and David W. Murray direct Hudson Institute's 
Center for Substance Abuse Policy Research. They served in the Office 
of National Drug Control Policy during the George W. Bush administration.

MARIJUANA AND SCHOOL FAILURE

The dose makes the poison. - Paracelsus

Millennials are the strongest advocates for legalizing marijuana, but 
they may be paving their own pathway to a problematic educational 
future through their political support.

Photo - Students walk to and from classes on the campus quad of the 
University of Colorado, in Boulder, Colo., Monday April 20, 2015. The 
University of Colorado was open to the public on this 4/20 marijuana 
holiday for the first time in three years. The university has blocked 
public access in recent years in an effort to snuff mass smokeouts to 
mark the unofficial marijuana celebration.

A substantial increase in marijuana potency over the past 20 years is 
today producing much greater harm than before. Recent research has 
not only made associations with psychotic effects on susceptible 
individuals, but has also stressed associations with diminished IQ 
and cognitive performance with heavy use and even detected brain 
abnormalities in association with "casual" exposure.

The concentration of the intoxicant THC found in marijuana has 
climbed from roughly 3-4 percent in the 1980s to the 20-30 percent 
common in current commercial products, with newer forms of the drug 
(such as "shatter") reaching 70-80 percent THC, according to 
nationwide drug seizures. This increased potency ratchets up the 
damage to educational performance.

How widespread is marijuana use in this generation? According to 
Monitoring the Future, an annual school survey conducted for NIDA, in 
2014, more than 44 percent of high school seniors reported "lifetime 
use" of marijuana, while more than 21 percent reported "Current use." 
These figures have held roughly steady for several years.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that the use of 
marijuana, even mid-potency marijuana, affects educational 
performance because it "interferes with attention, motivation, 
memory, and learning," and that students who are regular users "tend 
to get lower grades and are more likely to drop out." NIDA concludes 
that youth using marijuana "may be functioning at a reduced 
intellectual level most or all of the time."

It looks increasingly likely that early marijuana use is a causal 
variable in declining intellectual capacity. Moreover, whatever 
correlations we find between exposure to THC and cognitive and 
behavioral deficiencies in youth will likely accelerate as marijuana 
is legalized.

There are new data that bear on the matter, as the Educational 
Testing Service reports on results from the Programme for 
International Assessment of Adult Competencies. When compared to 
their international counterparts in 24 advanced industrial nations, 
American students, specifically the millennial generation (between 16 
and 34 years of age at time of assessment) continued to score near 
the bottom in literacy, math, and even the "ability to follow 
directions," despite having more years of schooling than their predecessors.

Education experts respond with reasonable explanations, such as 
America's diversity or income inequality, coupled with weakened schools.

But this time the "report card" from ETS is more complex. ETS notes 
that millennials look like America's "weakest generation" 
cognitively. And when ETS compared only the elite (90th percentile), 
native-born school performers across the international setting, 
Americans fared still worse. Intense marijuana use is found among 
U.S. youth in every social stratum. Correlation doesn't mean 
causation, but there is a correlation.

The impact may extend beyond schooling. Only 29 percent of youth of 
age for military service were deemed eligible for enlistment, with 
fully one-quarter failing the army's basic math and reading test. 
Further, daily use of marijuana by adolescents increased their risk 
of dropping out of high school by 66 percent, according to a recent 
Lancet analysis - and that dropout risk is even higher for the most 
socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to a report by the 
Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.

And what of Colorado, where commercial marijuana exploded in January 
2014? Nationally, daily use of marijuana among those 12 and older has 
already increased from 4.8 percent in 2002 to 8.1 percent by 2013. In 
2011, Colorado's daily use rates were 35 percent higher than the 
national average.

But drug-related school disruption is climbing. According to a recent 
report from the Colorado Department of Education, the percentage of 
expulsions for drug violations exploded from 26.2 percent to 41.9 
percent between 2008 and 2014, all prior to full commercialization.

Experts have even explored environmental factors, such as exposure to 
chemicals like phthalates, used in plastics and inked to IQ loss. A 
study involving zebra fish recently received attention in the 
Washington Post. Yet the Post has been silent regarding the 
environmental effects of THC.

Our argument is not that marijuana is the most important variable 
driving decline, though the evidence for a role is compelling. What 
we do argue is that anyone concerned with American schooling must 
account for this new threat.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom