Drug Awareness Week

RISKS FAR GREATER NOW

This isn't your dad's weed.

Studies show the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the
psychoactive component in marijuana, is more than nine times higher in
drugs on the street today than the era of peace and love.

"In the 1960s the average potency of a joint of marijuana was probably
less than one per cent," Dr. Sherry Reed-Walkiewicz said. "Now, the
average potency is somewhere in the order of nine to 10 per cent and
so that's basically nine-times the potency, which is nine times the
psychogenic effect, which is toxic to the brain and particularly so in
young people."

Following an "extensive literature review," Reed-Walkiewicz is hosting
an awareness presentation titled Marijuana Madness... From Hippie Cool
to Mentally Cruel at the Lakewood School cafeteria tonight from 6:30
p.m. to 8 p.m. aimed at showing parents the potential long-term
affects the drug can have on the developing brain.

"The teenage brain is hard-wiring, it's pruning and it's rewiring and
if you throw stuff into this rewiring, hard-wiring process that messes
it up, then you're going to have permanent effects," she said. "Where
as a 30-40-year-old smokes a potent joint, they're neurons aren't
developing, therefore they're more resistant to the permanently
damaging effects that the THC will do to them."

Reed-Walkiewicz's hour-long presentation draws on data from studies
released within the last year, including one identifying particular
gene combinations that, if paired with marijuana and the effects of
THC, increases the users chance of developing schizophrenia to 15 per
cent higher than the general population.

While studies have looked into the drug's positive effects, for
patients suffering from multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer's, for
example, Reed-Walkiewicz noted they are controlled tests on fully
developed adults, older than 25.

"It's good in specific cases for specific reasons," she said.
"Unfortunately, the stuff that's on the street, the stuff that people
are smoking, isn't chemical purified, laboratory tested cannabinoids
that have the therapeutic benefits. They're smoking the stuff that has
randomly high amounts of THC that has all the negative effects in it."

The presentation is in partnership with the OPP and falls during Drug
Awareness Week, which generally focuses on offering students insight
into the dangers if drugs.

Reed-Walkiewicz conceded it would be unrealistic to expect youth not
to indulge but said she wants to arm parents with the information and
general awareness needed to inspire early intervention.

"If you're a parent, are you going to just look the other way and say
'oh, my kid smokes dope, no big deal, I did when I was their age,'"
she asked. "It's not the same stuff as Woodstock. The risks are far
greater and far more certain now than then and it's a bit more of a
Russian roulette game now."