LETTER: Where’s the reporting on marijuana’s health effects?

Where’s the reporting on marijuana’s health effects?
I have been waiting in vain for the news media to report extensively on the health risks of marijuana. Before voting yes on recreational marijuana, people need to know the mental and physical problems they will be introducing to our people, especially our young.
In a study by Dr. David Ervine, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Chemical Dependency and Addiction at St Francis University in Loretto, and backed up by the article, “Marijuana the Blunt Truth” and other sources, this is a very harmful drug. Marijuana contains active THC as high as 27%, compared to 1% in the 1960s, and 4% in the 1980s. There are up to 70% more carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) in marijuana than in tobacco smoke. (And I thought we were trying to get rid of tobacco for its cancer-causing properties. Here we are about to legalize something even worse!) In fact, pound per pound, marijuana deposits four times as much tar in the lungs as tobacco.
Even worse than cancer, in my opinion, are the mental consequences. The more that marijuana is smoked, and the younger it is started, the more risk for schizophrenia. This drug can cause psychotic episodes, paranoia, memory problems, and infertility. Actually, tobacco sounds tame compared with marijuana!
But the worst danger is the danger that will be presented to anyone 25 years old and under. In a warning by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the human brain is still developing during these years, and heavy use lowers the IQ and causes permanent effects on the brain. We may comfort ourselves by imagining that not many teens are using it heavily, but many are, and use among teens is the highest it’s been in 30 years. In these years up through age 25, it can cause suicidal thinking (and we are already concerned about teen suicide), depression, anger, aggression and loss of motivation. The media tries to quell our fears for our teens by stating that recreational marijuana will only be legal for those over 21. However, if marijuana use among teens is widespread now, making it legal will only make it more available for teens. Do we really want to put our next generation at risk for such mental and physical harm?
Grace Roofner
Waynesburg