mainstreet | A Libertarian pot advocate turned opponent, Dr. Christian Thurstone,
is at ground zero in the marijuana legalization battle. The medical
director of a large Colorado youth drug treatment clinic; an associate
professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, Denver; and one
of a small number of doctors board certified in general, child and
adolescent and addictions psychiatry, he has unique insight into the
marijuana momentum sweeping the nation.
Thurstone believes that marijuana legalization is a disaster in the
making. He is not shy about saying so. His experience with Colorado
toe-in-the-water legalization of marijuana for medical purposes was his
epiphany.
He noticed back in 2009, when Colorado began providing "medical"
marijuana for its residents, that his clinic's clientele tripled: 95% of
his patients came for marijuana addiction. He learned from his teenage
clients that "medical" marijuana was easy to score on the streets. But
the potency was increasing from medical grade. Soon his young clients
would tell him how marijuana was their preferred medicine for relieving
stress and anxiety.
Eventually, these young addicts came in with "medical" marijuana
licenses. It was at this point Thurstone felt he needed to act. He wrote
a piece for the Denver Post criticizing medical marijuana laws in January 2010 titled "Smoke and Mirrors: Colorado Teenagers and Marijuana."
Thurstone made some fighting points. "What Colorado has created is a
backdoor way to legalize marijuana, and it has done so in a manner that
makes a mockery of responsible medicine," he wrote.
He elaborated on this point by writing: "Let's stop talking in terms
of smoked marijuana's medicinal value because we're not even close to
knowing what that is. Let's instead answer the question that's truly at
the heart of all of this political wrangling: Is smoking marijuana a
civil right? Before answering that question, Colorado should carefully
study the social costs of accidents, aggression, school dropouts, STDs
and teen pregnancy that will inevitably be the result of increased
marijuana use."
Five years later Thurstone continues his crusade. During an interview
on Denver's KUSA television station in January, Thurstone was quoted as
saying, "We're seeing a lot more patients, a lot more youth coming to
treatment for marijuana addiction....If somebody tries marijuana before
the age of 18, one in six develops an addiction to the drug. If someone
waits until after 18, the number is more like one in nine."
"We have good reason to believe from both animal and human studies
that exposure to marijuana during this important time of brain
development can permanently change the way the brain develops," he
added. "We have good evidence showing that marijuana exposure in
adolescents confers up to an eight-point drop in IQ from age 13 to 38.
We know that youth who use marijuana are two times more likely to
develop psychosis as young adults."
