LETTER: the marijuana delusion

To the editor:

As the legalization of marijuana gains momentum, scientific journals report mounting evidence of the drug's harmful social and psychological consequences.

a) A Swedish physician who studied the drug use of 50,000 military draftees found that those admitted to frequently smoking pot as teens were six times more likely to develop schizophrenia than non-smokers.

b) A 2018 report in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found that adult marijuana users were three times more likely to move on to opiates than non-users.

c) Dr. Daniel Amen, a world expert in brain research found that marijuana use decreases almost all areas of brain activity and that after conducting 62,000 scans on how the brain ages, discovered that marijuana is one of the top three factors in accelerating the aging of the brain.

d) A Columbia University study of 700,000 people reported that almost 19 per cent of those reporting depression used cannabis as compared to 8.7 per cent of those reporting depression who didn't. The data also suggested cannabis use may worsen or prolong depression.

In a survey of 600,000 16 t0 25-year-olds, it was found that from 2009 to 2017, major depression increased by 70 per cent, which begs the question as to why society isn't doing more to help them avoid harmful life choices.

And the benefits of smoking pot are?

Donald John

Vernon