Changing times for marijuana use

Potency, different ingestion methods, march toward legality creating issues

By Scott Cousins

ROXANA — As marijuana becomes more and more potent, teenagers and many parents think it is actually less and less harmful, according to law enforcement and addiction specialists at Roxana High School Wednesday.

The talk was the second of two by the Lewis and Clark Area Youth Alliance about trends in marijuana use. The first was held at East Alton-Wood River High School last week.

Aaron Nyman, deputy director of the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois, and Katie Venverthloh, a prevention specialist with Chestnut Health Systems and the Lewis and Clark Area Youth Alliance coordinator spoke to about a dozen people Wednesday.

Most of the program was headed by Nyman, who noted major changes in how people perceive marijuana.

“It is illegal to market a Happy Meal (in California), but you can smoke a joint in the park,” he said.
He also noted that there is no difference between medical and recreational marijuana.

“It’s just how it’s marketed and sold,” Nyman added.

Much of Nyman’s talk centered on what is happening in Colorado, because it mirrors the direction Illinois is heading, and also because much of the marijuana MEGSI sees is coming from there.

“As Colorado goes, Illinois is right behind,” he said. “It all starts with medical marijuana, once that’s in legalization is the next step.”

Venverthloh said a major concern is the perceived risk of marijuana use.

“Each year kids are thinking marijuana is less and less harmful,” she said.

Part of the issue is that the THC content, the active ingredient in marijuana is dramatically higher than it used to be, and in some cases is so high it has noticeable psychoactive effects.

Nyman said another concern is that the age of many first-time users has gone from 18 in the early 1960s, to 12 today.

He said among younger users there are usually other issues, such as home life, that gives them a “need to alter their reality.”

He said they are especially prone to moving on to other drugs.

“The younger they start, it becomes a lifestyle,” he said, adding that today that usually ends with heroin, which is responsible for about 48,000 overdose deaths per year in the U.S.

One of the biggest trends in marijuana is the use of butane honey oil, or BHO. According to Nyman, butane is used to extract the THC from the plant, leaving a waxy substance with very high THC levels.

“This is what’s driving the market,” he said, adding that BHO is what is being used to add THC to foods, patches and other marketing tools.

One concern is that the use of butane can be dangerous.

“You combine that with a stoner mentality and getting instructions off of YouTube,” Nyman said. “A lot of this comes from stupidity.”

Another factor, when BHO is added to food, is that people will tend to eat too much because it absorbs more slowly than smoking.

“People eat more and more because they don’t think it’s taking effect,” he said.

Nyman also said that legalization leads to other issues.

“It’s not the end of the world, but there are some real problems people are not talking about,” he said.

That includes dramatic increases in the number of impaired drivers and marijuana-related driving fatalities, as well as dramatic overall increases in both youth and adult marijuana use.

Both Nyman and Venverthloh said another concern is that there is not enough information about the long-term effects of marijuana, in part because the use and potency of the drug is changing so rapidly.