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\nOne of the enduring myths about marijuana is that it is \u201charmless\u201d and can be safely used by teens.<\/p>\n
\nOne of the enduring myths about marijuana is that it is \u201charmless\u201d and can be safely used by teens.<\/p>\n
Many high school teachers would beg to disagree, and consider the legalization of marijuana to be the biggest upcoming challenge in and around schools. And the evidence is on their side.<\/p>\n
As an education researcher, I have visited hundreds of schools over four decades, conducting research into both education policy and teen mental health. I\u2019ve come to recognize when policy changes are going awry and bound to have unintended effects.<\/p>\n
As Canadian provinces scramble to\u00a0establish their implementation policies<\/a>\u00a0before the promised\u00a0marijuana legalization date of July 2018<\/a>, I believe three major education policy concerns remain unaddressed.<\/p>\n These are that marijuana use by children and youth is harmful to brain development, that it impacts negatively upon academic success and that legalization is likely to increase the number of teen users.<\/p>\n Across Canada, province after province has been announcing its marijuana implementation policy, focusing almost exclusively on the control and regulation of the previously illegal substance. This has provoked fierce debates over\u00a0who will reap most of the excise tax windfall and whether cannabis will be sold in government stores or delegated to heavily regulated private vendors<\/a>.<\/p>\n All of the provincial pronouncements claim that their policy will be designed to protect \u201cpublic health and safety\u201d and safeguard \u201cchildren and youth\u201d from \u201charmful effects.\u201d A store assistant reaches for a bong at the Hotbox Cafe in Toronto in January 2018. Ontario is considering licensing cannabis consumption lounges. (THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Still, one in five young people between 15 and 24 years of age, according to\u00a0a recent national study<\/a>, report daily or almost daily use of cannabis.<\/p>\n They also see marijuana as \u201cmuch safer than alcohol and tobacco\u201d and \u201cnot as dangerous as drunk driving.\u201d<\/p>\n Few either know about or seem concerned over the clear linkage between heavy use and early-onset psychosis.<\/p>\n So what does the evidence say? First, heavy marijuana use can, and does, damage brain development in youth aged 13 to 18.<\/p>\n A 2015 Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse study\u00a0confirmed the direct link<\/a>\u00a0between cannabis use and loss of concentration and memory, jumbled thinking and early onset paranoid psychosis.<\/p>\n One of the leaders in the medical field,\u00a0Dr. Phil Tibbo<\/a>, initiator of Nova Scotia\u2019s Weed Myths campaign targeting teens, has seen\u00a0the evidence, first hand,<\/a>\u00a0of what heavy use can do as director of Nova Scotia\u2019s Early Psychosis Program.<\/p>\n His brain research shows that regular marijuana use leads to\u00a0an increased risk of developing psychosis and schizophrenia<\/a>\u00a0and effectively explodes popular and rather blas\u00e9 notions that marijuana is \u201charmless\u201d to teens and \u201crecreational use\u201d is simply \u201cfun\u201d and \u201chealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n The miminum age for purchasing marijuana will be 18 in some Canadian provinces. (Unsplash\/ Smoke & Vibe)<\/p><\/div>\n Second, marijuana\u00a0negatively impacts neurocognitive performance<\/a>\u00a0in teens and users perform more poorly in quantitative subjects requiring precision \u2014 like mathematics and senior science.<\/p>\n In 2017, Dutch researchers Olivier Marie and Ulf Zolitz found that the academic performance of Maastricht University students\u00a0increased substantially when they were no longer legally permitted to buy cannabis<\/a>. The effects were stronger for women and low performers and academic gains were larger for courses needing numerical or mathematical skills.<\/p>\n Third, legalization of marijuana is likely to increase the number of teen users.<\/p>\n Research from Oregon Research Institute<\/a>\u00a0conducted in 2017 showed that teenagers who were already using marijuana prior to legalization increased their frequency of use significantly afterwards.\u00a0Research from New York University<\/a>, published in 2014, indicated that many high school students normally at low risk for marijuana use (e.g., non-cigarette-smokers, religious students, those with friends who disapprove of use) reported an intention to use marijuana if it were legal.<\/p>\n Medical researchers and practitioners have warned us that\u00a0legalization carries great dangers<\/a>, particularly for vulnerable and at-risk youth between 15 and 24 years of age.<\/p>\n Marijuana legalization policy across Canada is a top-down federal initiative driven largely by changing public attitudes and conditioned by the current realities of the widespread use of marijuana, purchased though illicit means.<\/p>\n Setting the age of restriction, guided by the proposed federal policy framework, has turned out to be an exercise in \u201ccompromise\u201d rather than one focused on heeding the advice of leading medical experts and the\u00a0Canadian Medical Association (CMA).<\/a><\/p>\n In a\u00a02016 submission to the government<\/a>, the CMA argued that 25 would be the ideal age for legal access to marijuana, as the brain is still developing until then, but that a lower minimum age of 21 should be considered \u2014 to discourage children from purchasing marijuana from organized crime groups.<\/p>\n The report argued that: \u201cMarijuana use is linked to several adverse health outcomes, including addiction, cardiovascular and pulmonary effects (e.g., chronic bronchitis), mental illness, and other problems, including cognitive impairment and reduced educational attainment. There seems to be an increased risk of chronic psychosis disorders, including schizophrenia, in persons with a predisposition to such disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact,\u00a0the minimum age for purchasing and possessing marijuana<\/a>\u00a0is going to be age 18 in Alberta and Quebec, and 19 in most other provinces. Getting it \u201cout of high schools\u201d was a critical factor in bumping it up to age 19 in most provinces. Marijuana on display at Harborside marijuana dispensary in Oakland, Calif. in January 2018. (AP Photo\/Mathew Sumner)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Every Canadian province is complying with the federal legislation, but \u2014 in our federal system \u2013 it\u2019s \u201ccustomized\u201d for each jurisdiction.<\/p>\n The Canadian Western provinces \u2014 Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan \u2014have opted for regulating private retail stores, while Ontario and the Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I.) are expanding their liquor control commissions to accommodate retail sales of cannabis.<\/p>\n High school teachers, as of September 2018, may be battling\u00a0a spike in marijuana use<\/a>\u00a0and greater peer pressure to smoke pot on the mistaken assumption that it is \u201charmless\u201d at any age.<\/p>\n For high school principals and staff, this will be\u00a0a real test<\/a>.<\/p>\n By September 2018, the old line of defence that using marijuana is illegal will have disappeared. Recreational marijuana will be more socially acceptable. The cannabis industry will be openly marketing its products. High school students who drive to school will likely get caught under new laws prohibiting motor vehicle use while impaired by drugs or alcohol. Fewer students are likely to abstain when it is perfectly legal to smoke pot when you reach university, college or the workplace.<\/p>\n\u2018Much safer than alcohol\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Early-onset paranoid psychosis<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/joint.jpg\")
Damaging to academic performance<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Age of restriction<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Clamping down in schools<\/strong><\/h4>\n