If you think legalizing marijuana won't affect you... Think Again.
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Home > Marijuana Use: Detrimental to Youth

Marijuana Use: Detrimental to Youth

Link: 
Marijuana Use: Detrimental to Youth [1]
Article Date: 
Friday, April 1, 2016

Tags:

  • American Academy of Pediatrics [2]
  • youth [3]
  • Research [4]
  • Side-Effects [5]

In summary, marijuana use is harmful to children and adolescents.  For this reason, the American College of Pediatricians opposes its legalization for recreational use and urges extreme caution in legalizing it for medicinal use.  Likewise, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) recently offered their own policy statement opposing efforts to legalize marijuana. They similarly pointed out that “marijuana’s deleterious effects on adolescent brain development, cognition, and social functioning may have immediate and long-term implications, including increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, sexual victimization, academic failure, lasting decline in intelligence measures, psychopathology, addiction, and psychosocial and occupational impairment.” Thus the AACAP (a) opposes efforts to legalize marijuana, (b) supports initiatives to increase awareness of marijuana’s harmful effects on adolescents, (c) supports improved access to evidence-based treatment, rather than emphasis on criminal charges, for adolescents with cannabis use disorder, and (d) supports careful monitoring of the effects of marijuana-related policy changes on child and adolescent mental health.49 The College agrees with this position on marijuana.

If you think legalizing marijuana won't affect you... Think Again.


Source URL: http://www.rethinkpot.org/marijuana-use-detrimental-youth-0

Links
[1] https://www.acpeds.org/marijuana-use-detrimental-to-youth
[2] http://www.rethinkpot.org/tags/american-academy-pediatrics
[3] http://www.rethinkpot.org/tags/youth
[4] http://www.rethinkpot.org/tags/research
[5] http://www.rethinkpot.org/tags/side-effects