Pubdate: Fri, 04 Nov 2016
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2016 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233

LEGAL POT AND THE MOST VULNERABLE

Residents in Nevada and four other states - California, Massachusetts,
Maine and Arizona - will learn sometime Tuesday night whether voters
have approved ballot measures to legalize marijuana. And as multiple
recent reports have noted, states that take this leap will almost
assuredly experience unintended trickle-down consequences,
particularly for young people.

For instance, David Kroll, writing for Forbes.com on California's
Proposition 64, reported this past week on the work of Michael Taffe,
a drug abuse researcher at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla,
Calif. In an informative Facebook post addressing many of his concerns
with Prop 64 and similar initiatives in other states, Dr. Taffe notes
that 5 to 6 percent of high school seniors in America already use
marijuana daily. Further, Dr. Taffe points out that marijuana has a
conditional probability of dependence - an addiction rate - of 9
percent, more than twice that of alcohol, which is at 4 percent.

Dr. Taffe also rightly notes that the scope of the addiction depends
on how many people are using it - a number certain to increase with
marijuana legalization.
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MAP posted-by: Matt