By Dr. Leon Cattolico, Clarkdale, AZ
(June 10, 2013)
As a Physician and member of the Board of Directors of MATFORCE, I am very concerned about the increase in marijuana use amongst youth in Yavapai County. According to the 2012 Arizona Youth Survey 25% of 12th grade students in Yavapai County admitted to regular marijuana use. This is a 7% increase from the 2010 Arizona Youth Survey.
Is this what we want for the future of our children? Do we want to continue to see a rise in our children getting high on the drug marijuana? Will that help them in school or help them become better citizens?
As a physician, I am very concerned about how marijuana affects health. It is important to me that parents and youth have the real facts and understand the negative impacts. The research into the adverse effects of using marijuana is new and evolving. But some of what we know thus far has been summarized by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.
“Marijuana also has negative effects on the lungs Marijuana smokers can have many of the same respiratory problems as tobacco smokers, such as daily cough and phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illness, and a heightened risk of lung infections. A study of 450 individuals found that people who smoke marijuana frequently but do not smoke tobacco have more health problems and miss more days of work than nonsmokers. Marijuana smoke, in fact, contains 50‐70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke. Long-term studies have shown that regular marijuana smokers report more symptoms of chronic bronchitis than nonsmokers.
Marijuana has negative effects on the Heart. Marijuana increases the heart rate by 20-100 percent shortly after smoking; this increased heart rate can last up to 3 hours. Marijuana users also have a 4.8-fold increase in the risk of heart attack in the first hour after smoking the drug, in part due to increased heart rate as well as the effects of marijuana on heart rhythms, causing palpitations and arrhythmias.
Marijuana can also have negative effects on Mental Health: Studies have consistently shown a very strong association between chronic marijuana use and mental illness – especially schizophrenia and psychosis, but also including increased rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. When compared with those who have never used cannabis, young adults who began using the drug at age 15 or younger are twice as likely to develop a psychotic disorder, and four times as likely to experience delusional symptoms. A number of longitudinal studies throughout the world have found that users who had tried cannabis by age 18 are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than those who have not used the drug, and approximately 13 percent of cases of schizophrenia could be averted if cannabis use was prevented.”
Lowers IQ – A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found persistent marijuana users who started smoking at a young age had lower IQ scores as adults. They were more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life. And even when they stopped using marijuana for a prolonged amount of time, the effects of a lower IQ were still observed.
The bottom line is that the drug marijuana is much more dangerous than many realize. As a physician I strongly encourage you to make positive choices for good health!
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2 Comments
You’d think a physician would see how medical marijuana has been a lifeline and savior drug to many with physical pain. My sister, a devout mormon, has been battling stomach cancer for the past 5 years. After chemo, she weighted 87 pounds and could barely eat. She could not swallow the marijuana pills prescribed and would have to buy pot from the local drug dealer to get her medicine. We all rejoiced when medical marijuana was made legal ! I am happy to report she is doing much better now, her weight is up to 130, she’s walking again after being too weak to walk and confined to a wheelchair for nearly a year. It has proved wonderous for her.
Now there’s some who’d like to take that away from her. To those people I say, I hope you never have to watch a loved one live day after day in pain, find something that has helped not only alleviate the pain, but to make life worth living again.
As far as the recreational use goes, all those who’ve been to college (or high school) knows how easy it is to get marijuana. It’s really not much different from alcohol. If you read the good doctor’s letter and replace beer with marijuana, you’d probably come up with the same conclusion.
Alcohol is not good for the body, but it is accepted socially in moderate amounts. Look at alcohol’s history – prohibition was a big money maker for the mafia and alcohol was still available to any who really wanted it. Going through my grandmother’s things after she passed, I found a recipe for bathtub gin.
The reason alcohol was made legal again was the money involved. The country was in crisis and when prohibition was repealed, the US got a big shot in the arm by the taxes it raked in from the sales of alcohol and tobacco.
Today we are being taxed TO DEATH and our economic outlook for Arizona is dire. There’s no money for good health care in Arizona, children go to bed without food, and people are losing homes and jobs. We could really use the tax money it would provide. Kids are ALWAYS going to get the keys to the liquor cabinet no matter what — as we have seen in the past, just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean it’s not available. I’m all for going the route of Colorado – legalize it, and tax it so our society may benefit. Stop the schizophrenic attitude that beer is OK but pot is not! BOTH are health debilitating drugs. Legalize marijuana, Tax it, and make wise choices not to use it or alcohol. Do it for the good of all.
In 1975 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia discover that cannabis is incredibly successful for reducing the size of many types of tumors, both benign and cancerous.
In 2000 Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University in Madrid Spain re-discovered that THC destroys tumors with no negative side effects whatsoever. His team also irrigated healthy rats brains with high doses of THC for seven days and again found no negative results. Cannabinoids kill cancer cells by cutting off their blood supply but not to the healthy cells. These results have since been duplicated around the globe with many other cancers as well.
In 2005 Dr. Xia Zhang of the University of Saskatchewan found that THC actually promotes the growth of brain cells bringing new hope for head trauma and stroke patients. The same year the Scripps Institute reported that THC was a superior inhibitor of the plaque that causes Alzheimers. Unfortunately we hear little of any of these findings.
In 2008 researchers in Italy and the U.K. found that cannabinoids have germ killing activity against MRSA and kill bacteria in a different way than current antibiotics, meaning they might bypass bacterial resistance. MRSA’s are becoming more and more prevalent and new treatments are desperately needed.
Cannabis has also been found extremely helpful with autism, epilepsy, arthritis, migraine, asthma, emphysema, MS, ALS, OCD, ADHD, chronic pain, nausea, cystic fibrosis, lupus, tuberculosis, muscular dystrophy, depression, diabetes, glaucoma, alcoholism, herpes, anxiety, Parkinsons, Huntingtons, Tourettes, Crohn’s disease, and more. It is the safest medicine known to man. All mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles have cannabinoid receptors throughout their body that work independently of those that control the heart and breathing which is why cannabis cannot kill you. The hemp seed is the single most nutritionally complete food source on Earth, reintroduced to our diets it will alleviate many of the above mentioned diseases and help end world hunger.
So, if you take this information and add it to all the all the nutritional, industrial and cosmetic uses, then add in that it was God himself that in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament instructed Moses to use 250 shekels of cannabis(kaneh bosm) in the Holy Oil used to anoint all Priests, Kings, and Prophets, for all generations to come, including that of Jesus and even today as the title Christ/Messiah means literally covered in oil, anointed, I think we have the botanical Messiah, the Mystical Tree of Life, not a worthless plant!!!