What the White House Says About Legalizing Marijuana
What the White House says about Legalizing Marijuana – Full E-mail: “What they Have to Say About Legalizing Marijuana By Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy When the President took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about marijuana is based on what the science tells us about the drug’s effects. According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world’s largest source of drug abuse research – marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health — especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20’s. Simply put, it is not a benign drug. Like many, we are interested in the potential marijuana may have in providing relief to individuals diagnosed with certain serious illnesses. That is why we ardently support ongoing research into determining what components of the marijuana plant can be used as medicine. To date, however, neither the FDA nor the Institute of Medicine have found smoked marijuana to meet the modern standard for safe or …
Drop in Illicit Drug Use in Cities, Uptick in Prescription Drug Abuse
Filed under: drug abuse warning network
Researchers analyzed data on drug-abuse related visits to emergency departments in 11 major metropolitan areas and some smaller urban areas over three years, 2007-2009. The data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network was separated into two types of …
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Rx Drug Abuse Up, Illicit Drug Use Wanes
Filed under: drug abuse warning network
To assess trends in abuse of prescription and illicit drugs, the researchers looked at data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) for 11 major metropolitan areas between 2007 and 2009. The database provides estimates of the percentage of …
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Illicit drugs down but prescription drug abuse climbing
Filed under: drug abuse warning network
For the study emergency department drug related visits were taken from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) a public health surveillance system that monitors drug-related hospital emergency departments and drug-related deaths investigated by …
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