Adolescent cannabis abuse is a hot topic given the recent and upcoming state elections to legalize marijuana. There is the perception it is safer than alcohol or other drugs and thus safer for teens to use marijuana than alcohol. Today’s guest author, Dr. Jennifer Golick, explains why this is not true.

Dr. Golick is the Clinical Director at Muir Wood Adolescent and Family Services. Jennifer has over 16 years of clinical experience in a variety of outpatient and residential treatment facilities treating severe mental illness, chronic pain and addiction. Jennifer’s clinical specialties include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Attachment Theory, Motivational Interviewing and family systems models focusing on helping individuals and families identify problematic patterns of thinking in order to affect systemic change. Jennifer has co-authored several published articles and has been a clinical consultant for an episode of This Week with George Stephanopoulos as well as with the BBC Health Documentary Department. She has been a featured keynote speaker on adolescent addiction and treatment in professional and academic settings, both locally and internationally.

Adolescent Cannabis Abuse by Dr. Jennifer Golick

Dr. Jennifer Golick, Clinical Director of Muir Wood Adolescent Treatment

With legalization of marijuana occurring in multiple states, there has been an increased focus on the impact that legally available marijuana will have on adolescents. There has also been much discussion about early intervention and resources focused on the most vulnerable members of the community, adolescents. Recent studies by Monitoring the Future have shown that the adolescent perception of the dangers of marijuana have decreased and conversely, the use of marijuana amongst adolescents has increased. Marijuana potency has both increased and evolved over the past fifteen years. Of particular concern are the marijuana extracts that are making frequent consumption of high-potency marijuana easy and relatively undetected.

With the relatively constant incidence of cannabis use, why has dependence increased? It is clear that a major factor is a substantially higher potency of THC in current engineered marijuana being consumed. Since 1983, when THC concentrations averaged below 4 percent, many marijuana samples now reflect content in the 10 to 20 percent range, with some specialty products showing concentrations exceeding 30 percent. The growing problem of cannabis dependence in youth is posing an increasing challenge to adolescent addiction treatment programs. Part of this challenge is the prevailing belief in the youth drug culture that marijuana is a safe drug that has medical utility, which researchers are increasingly finding may be true.

Successful treatment of adolescent addiction requires that the medical and treatment community shift the paradigm of how we understand addiction and treat it as a pediatric illness. The approach to treatment has been, historically, rooted in adult treatment approaches. Thus parents and treatment professionals alike hold the belief that we must wait for the adolescent to “hit bottom” and then have a willingness to engage in treatment. We must instead approach adolescent substance use as a constellation of issues, which at any point can be intervened upon, rather than viewing it through the lens of a downward trajectory at which the bottom, or catastrophic event, is the point of intervention. Given that adolescents with substance use problems often feel they do not need help, engaging them in treatment often requires parents to make the decision to admit the adolescent to treatment without their consent.

The potential harm of cannabis use in adolescence is becoming increasingly clear, as is the need for more effective treatment and early intervention. This includes a shift in the paradigm of adolescent treatment to reflect the unique aspects of adolescent substance abuse and to eliminate the concept of “hitting bottom” prior to initiating treatment.

Check out Dr. Golick’s article, “Shifting the Paradigm: Adolescent Cannabis Abuse and the Need for Early Intervention,” for more information.

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