Category Archives: Mental Health

Mental Health, Testimonies

Stop Living in Denial of the Marijuana – Mental Health Crisis

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Wake Up, America, to the Looming Mental Health Crisis

by Lori Robinson, co-founder of Moms Strong    After losing my own kid, I caution parents not to live in denial of marijuana, as I did.  Your child will be exposed to marijuana and is likely to experiment with it.  It is my mission to prevent other young people from going down the same path my son did.

Just because something originates in nature doesn’t mean it’s safe.  Like some people die from a bee sting, a part of mother nature, some people die from the consequences of using marijuana, or they spiral out of control.

If a person who uses today’s highly potent marijuana goes into psychosis (or depression, panic attack, other psychiatric presentation), please get the proper treatment.  The mental health system needs to first address the drug effects and assess the need for addiction treatment.  Next, wait for the drug-induced mental illness to run its course.   Then educate about brain health.

Our California Problem

In California, it’s common to rope young marijuana users with psychotic symptoms into the label of a permanent, debilitating mental illness rather than give them addiction treatment.  When it comes to strong males like my son, they also flood them with powerful, unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs.  In the case of cannabis-induced psychosis, the anti-psychotics are often ineffective against the psychosis.

For some youth, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder may also be devastating.   After all, everyone else is using marijuana and it’s a sign of weakness not to be able to handle pot.   As reported recently in the Desert Sun, “Despite robust scientific research about the negative potential effects of marijuana use, young adults tend to underestimate the risks……Nearly two-thirds (60.5 percent) of young adults surveyed who use marijuana do not think it’s addictive, and just as many (60.8 percent) do not think marijuana can damage the brain.”

Our children and teens need to learn the true harms about today’s pot, especially to their, young, developing brains. The marijuana financiers should stop pretending they know about medicine. Medical marijuana practitioners are doing far more harm than good, as the one who gave pot to my friend Leah’s son, Brandon.

If marijuana is legalized nationally, the need for mental health treatment will explode.  Psychiatry is a tricky field with less success than other medical specialties such as heart disease or emergency medicine. The fallout will be huge.   Wake up, America. We are in uncharted waters.  Marijuana use is growing nationwide and your kid may be the next casualty.

How do We Know Who is Vulnerable?

We don’t know.  There’s no genetic test to discover who is susceptible to adverse mental health problems from pot.   Those who have fancy educations and six-figure incomes frequently brag about their ability to use without negative consequences.  (Their families may see it otherwise.)

This boasting shames people — particularly youth — into feeling they should be just as powerful.   Some people continue even when they know it’s bad for them.

As a child, I was stung by bees several times.  Each time my reaction got progressively worse. The last time it happened was at age 16; the doctor told me I could die if it happens again.  Why is marijuana use like a fatal bee sting that makes some people swell until they implode?

Stop the Denial

So many young  people develop adverse effects from using today’s high-strength pot.  The marijuana advocates are pushing it because there’s so much money to be made.  The don’t want potential users to become aware of these problems.  They preach that nationwide legalization is inevitable and foster denial.

Research around the globe proves that marijuana causes panic attacks, paranoia, severe anxiety and/or depression.  American hospitals often don’t consider marijuana a factor in the picture of mental health, and that’s a tragedy.  There’s an urgent need for psychiatry to train more addiction specialists.  If users quit after the first episode of psychosis or mental health disorder, they probably can avoid a permanent psychological problem.  However, these users must never go back to pot again.  It’s like avoiding the bee stings if someone who’s allergic doesn’t want a fatal reaction.

How many American families have lost a member to suicide, and now suspect it was undiagnosed bipolar disorder?   How many of these loved ones have been marijuana users, or former users?  Rashaan Salaam, the Heisman Trophy winner who killed himself last week, suffered from marijuana addiction which destroyed his career.

Maybe these families placed their denial in the wrong diagnosis.   Youth who use marijuana are 7x more likely to attempt suicide,  as reported in Lancet Psychiatry Journal in September 2014.  How many of these loved ones have been marijuana users, or former users?

Addiction, Mental Health

Mind-Body Solutions Offer Healing Without Medicine

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Trauma Becomes Biology, But There’s Hope

How do we help children with difficult childhoods grow into adulthood without becoming drug users?  Is healing possible without using medicine?  Can our health system devise ways to treat chronic pain and illness without using marijuana or pharmaceutical drugs?

Those who grow up in difficult, traumatic situations – those whose bodies hold a painful past of abuse, shock or emotional pain – respond to opioid pain pills differently from the way non-traumatized people do.  They may be primed for opioid pill addiction more than others, according to Jon Daily of Recovery Happens, Sacramento. Furthermore, emotional trauma during childhood also leads to hypertension and a host of chronic illnesses.

Popular writer Monica Cassani agrees.   She describes on her website how Chronic illness is trauma embodied.    Her blog is called Beyond Meds

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia now recognize Adverse Childhood Experiences as part of public health.  Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs are considered contributing factors to depression and a host of chronic diseases.   Experts use 10 paradigms for testing childhood trauma.  A score of 4 or more ACEs makes a person 460 percent more likely to suffer from depression.  A score of 6 or more takes 20 years off life.  Adults with high ACE scores are susceptible to chronic diseases that are rare in those who do not have ACEs.

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Childhood Disrupted and The Body Keeps the Score are two excellent books for understanding childhood trauma and its relationship to pain and illness.

The death of a parent, divorce, family drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse are among the events that can be counted as ACEs. These traumas are singled out because of their unexpected and unpredictable nature.  Severe bullying, excessive parental criticism are included, as well as living in a violent neighborhood.  Extreme poverty also creates stressful situations which can be compounded by abuse and the other problems.

Healing Chronic Disease Through Mind-Body Solutions

There’s good news.   Psychology,  Psychiatry and the medical field can lead the way for overcomimg both disease and emotional garbage. Understanding and applying the mind-body connection can work miracles without medicine.  Several notable scholars have led the way.  Francine Shapiro’s Getting Past Your Past and Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score provide excellent explanations and understanding.  Books by Daniel Siegel and Peter Levine offer therapeutic keys to healing.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa wrote one of the most straightforward explanations of healing ACEs in her new book.  Childhood Disrupted explains the causes of trauma in childhood and how to heal it.   In another book, The Last Best Cure, she describes her own healing from two debilitating auto-immune diseases.   (Nakazawa experienced the sudden traumatic death of her father when she was twelve.  While she outwardly coped, her body suffered deeply.) A science journalist, Nakazawa writes for the general public.

Part 2 will cover healing psychiatric problems through mind-body solutions, and Part 3 will summarize the growing problem of traumatized children.  Part 4 explains how we’re creating a new, larger generation of traumatized children.

Medical Marijuana, Mental Health

Remember Andy Zorn: My Son’s Killer

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On Veteran’s Day we honor Andy Zorn who died in March 2014, age 31.  His mother Sally Schindel wrote this statement about his killer.

Andy Zorn’s mission was to make friends and families laugh.  He was the class clown.  He made parties come alive.  As he grew older, he helped friends through tough times.  He served with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq.

His bright future, however, masked a dark secret.  Marijuana abuse took him down a spiral suicide help lines, hospitalizations in five mental health hospitals and two stints of court-ordered mental health treatment.  He told his mother, father and social worker he had to quit using marijuana if he is to live, but he just couldn’t do it.

And then, at the age of 31, my son hanged himself from a tree in Peoria, Arizona.  His suicide note the cause of his death.  “I want to die. My soul is dead. Marijuana killed my soul + ruined my brain.”

As I came to terms with Andy’s death and the note he left, I was confused. I’d always believe marijuana wasn’t addictive.  My research since has revealed I was far from the truth. Marijuana is highly addictive.  Almost one in three users of marijuana exhibit symptoms of substance use disorder. I learned later that my son had been diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder.

Andy’s wallet contained his medical marijuana card and a dispensary loyalty card, indicating his numerous purchases and progress toward earning a free eighth of an ounce.   So I visited the manager at the store he frequented.  I wanted her to know my son’s story so she could prevent another death by recognizing someone in trouble with addiction. I asked her to watch for any healthy young person buying the limit of 2-1/2 ounces every 15 days, which could be a sign of dependence.

She told me marijuana is not addictive.  “Marijuana has never been related to a death,” she insisted.  I asked her to look at my sons suicide note. I asked her to look at his death certificate, one no parents want to see listing suicide as the cause of death. I offered her copies to share with her patients to help prevent another death.

She declined and asked me if there was another explanation for my son’s death, another drug in the coroner’s report.  No there were no other drugs.  She pointed out the décor in the dispensary: giant copies of checks to local non-profits, including a children’s hospital.  I suggested she consider donating to organizations that educate youth to prevent drug and alcohol use at the early ages susceptible to substance use disorders.  She said that wasban interesting idea.

I took note of other décor in the dispensary.  A sign in the receptionist’s window promoted products with 90 percent THC, the psychoactive element of pot.  In the 1970s, THC content was in the low single digits.

Then I left because I know a business is unlikely to help prevent use of its product by people who will be its best customer in the future.  I left because I am sickened by an industry that refuses to acknowledge the known risks of its products.   I left because this woman made it clear she will continue to sell her product without feeling responsible for customers exhibiting signs of abuse.

I left because my desire to save a life like my son’s is wasted on anyone in this industry.  Marijuana is much like the tobacco industry of the past, which refused to acknowledge known risks in its product.

Editor’s note – Since the tobacco industry is required to post health warnings, the  marijuana industry should be required to use warning labels, also.   A long-term study of from Yale showed that marijuana makes PTSD  worse, and no health organization validates marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. 

Here’s an article about alternative treatments for PTSD and pain.

 

Addiction, Mental Health

Marijuana is a Hard Drug, Dutch Doctor Compares to Heroin

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A Growing Threat to Our Youth

There are several reasons that marijuana should no longer be called a soft drug, which is misleading. The cannabis of today is undeniably a hard drug.   Dr. Darryl Inaba, Director of an addictions recovery center in Medford, Oregon was recently interviewed on the science of marijuana addiction.  He said:

“As a clinician who has worked with those who experience medical, emotional and social problems from its use for the past 40 years, I am concerned about the life consequences that legalization will have on those who are vulnerable to developing problems from its use, especially youth users who are most at risk.

“Currently about 17% of those who are treated for substance-related and addictive disorders in the United States list marijuana as their primary and many list it as their secondary or tertiary drug of choice. It is, in fact, the substance most often listed by the 1.8 to 1.9 million treated for addiction each year in this country.  

“The majority of the clients I have treated for CUD during the past 40 years were self-referred, not criminally-referred into treatment.  They entered treatment because marijuana was causing severe dysfunction and disruption in their lives and they desperately wanted to stop despite the great ridicule they were getting from others calling them a ‘wussy’ who should go out and get a real addiction like heroin or meth before needing any help to stop.”

Those with Cannabis Abuse Disorder will not be able to stop without help.  Dr. Inaba goes on to explain the problem with stronger strains of marijuana today,  “dabs,” “spice” and edibles.

Expert finds it’s more dangerous than heroin

Dr. Martien Kooyman of the Netherlands  said the following about the truth of today’s pot:

“The cannabis grown and sold today is not same drug as was available in the 1970s. The average THC has increased to more than 15%. Cannabis issue can clearly lead to addiction. The damage to the brain from chronic use is worse compared with chronic use of heroin. Among the negative effects of long-term cannabis use in adolescence include neuro-psychological dysfunction, decline in IQ, short memory, among others.”

Dr. Kooyman vehemently stated that cannabis can no longer be labeled a ‘soft’ drug. There is no justification to have different laws for cannabis than other drugs (labeled as ‘hard’).

“The legalization of cannabis reinforces already existing opinion among youth that there are no risks in using cannabis.” Dr. Kooyman made these comments at a special session on cannabis at the World Federation Against Drugs meeting, held in Sweden, 2014.

Marijuana advocates insist it’s not as dangerous as heroin.   Existing studies on addiction are not accounting for the higher THC of today, over 16% in Colorado and average more than 20% in Washington.  In the old studies, the rate of addiction was 9% for adults and 17% for those who began as adolescents.   In essence, your chances of getting addicted to marijuana were roughly the same as the chances for getting addicted to alcohol.

These statistics need to be studied again, accounting for THC that is averages about 4x higher than previously.   Furthermore, “dabs” and “wax” are off the charts in THC, very potent and addictive.