By Dr. Paul Tighe, Superintendent
Mingus Union High School District
We are hearing considerable propaganda that marijuana is harmless and should be legalized. In November of 2010, Arizona voters legalized the medical use of marijuana and several states have recently legalized recreation use of marijuana. So does this impact education?
First, let’s address the myth that marijuana is not harmful. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (September, 2012) published, “A major new study provides objective evidence that, at least for adolescents, marijuana is harmful to the brain.” The study concluded that persistent cannabis users had significantly more memory and attention problems. Dr. Stephen Dewey of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research has compiled considerable evidence of the adverse impact of marijuana on brain functioning. Furthermore, marijuana is addictive. In fact, 16% who start smoking marijuana as a teen become addicted (MATFORCE, 2013).
With the legalization of medical use of marijuana in Arizona in 2010, there has been a significant increase in marijuana use among youth. There are some alarming statistics from the 2012 AZ Youth Survey. In Yavapai County:
- 17% of 8th graders say they have used marijuana and 8% say they used it in the past 30 days
- 22% of 10th graders say they have used marijuana in the past 30 days, up from18% in 2010
- 26% of 12th graders say they have used marijuana in the past 30 days, up from 19% in 2010
The Office of Applied Studies published a National Survey on Drug Abuse Report (2002) that showed youth with an average grade of D or below were more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year than youth with an average grade of A. Those who used cannabis heavily in their teens and continued through adulthood showed a permanent drop in IQ of eight points (Meier, 2012).
The future of our community rests on our youth and the education of our youth is paramount to their success. There are already documented increases in marijuana use among youth following the legalization of medical use of marijuana. We need to protect our youth from the harmful, addictive effects of marijuana. We need to be informed of the facts about marijuana as we face attempts to legalize marijuana drug use.
This is an advertisement
2 Comments
I’m wondering if the doctor has ever tried mairjuana? I thought so.
Anyone can find a survey to back one’s opinion on any subject.
You’ve been watching too much Reefer Madness.
Cannabis kills cancer cells. That has been proven for at least 39 years. 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!
The ONLY reason that marijuana was made illegal was Hearst spread rumors in his nationwide newspapers of its pretended evil to get it and hemp banned. Why? Paper. Hemp makes much better and longer lasting paper than trees and Hearst owned the timber from which he created his paper. Thanks to him, hemp and marijuana was banned and cancer has continued unabated
and thousands have died.