via NY Post by Betsy McCaughey
Legalizing marijuana for adults leads to more teens and preteens using, too, University of Washington researchers report. More teenagers use marijuana daily than smoke cigarettes or drink booze, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In fact, cigarette use is at its lowest level since the institute started tracking it, but weed use is an epidemic. That’s bad news.
Adolescent pot users have trouble in school because they suffer memory impairment, loss of learning ability and reasoning skills and possibly a permanent decline in IQ, the institute reports. No wonder it’s called “dope.”
Marijuana damages the hippocampus area of the brain, which impacts memory. Scientists who tracked nearly 4,000 young adults into their 40s confirmed that marijuana use does lasting damage to memory, according to research in the Journal of the American Medical Association published in 2016.
Chronic teen marijuana users have dismal futures, reports the American Public Health Association. They stop their education sooner, are less likely to have full-time jobs as adults and have lower socio-economic potential. The politicians pushing legalization are mum about that.
Truth is, the marijuana tax revenues should be used for a brutally honest public ad campaign warning young people about marijuana. A staggering 71 percent of high school seniors don’t think it’s harmful, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- The complete story here > Stop ignoring the brutal downside of legal pot