What you should know about teenagers and marijuana abuse

Teenage marijuana abuse is a worrying topic for everyone, whether you support or oppose legalization of the plant. While marijuana poses few risks for adult users, it has other effects on teenage brains, which are still growing and developing.

Legal marijuana does not seem to lead to more cannabis use in adolescents, but research shows that some concerns are warranted. A recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that teenagers’ brains are more prone to marijuana and opioid addictions, making these users more likely to become addicted to drugs compared to young adults.

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Rather than narrowing the study to nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis as in previous studies of this type, researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse looked for a variety of drug use, such as pain relievers, cigarettes, tranquilizers, stimulants, marijuana, alcohol, and more. They specifically studied two groups of young people: 12 to 17 years old and 18 to 25 years old.

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The younger the test subjects were, the more likely they were to become dependent on the substance. When comparing the marijuana statistics, the researchers found that teens were 11% more likely to develop an addiction than young adults who only came 6%. Within three years of first taking the drug, 20% of teenagers were more likely to become addicted. Young adults did not report this behavior.

While it is possible that people with a greater propensity for drug addiction could have these experiences at a young age, said one of the study’s lead authors, Dr. Nora Volkow, of the New York Times, that cannabis and other drugs are likely to have an impact on a developing brain, and that drugs like cannabis are more likely to alter synaptic connections in younger brains, resulting in stronger memories of joy and reward.

Another study suggests that while cannabis provides anxiety relief in adults, it may have the opposite effect in adolescents. It found that young users with a cannabis abuse disorder had high levels of TPSO, a brain protein that has been linked to depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and encephalitis. While the researchers were adamant that the results did not immediately associate cannabis with anxiety in teenagers, they recommend doing more research.

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As marijuana becomes legalized in more and more states, the role of drug use among teenagers is still worth discussing. Although cannabis use among adolescents should not be encouraged, marijuana programs across the country could make these drugs difficult for adolescents to access. Legal marijuana is likely to restrict black market marijuana, which tends to be of lower quality and more readily available.