New research from the US shows: smoking weed leads to addiction

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Thanks to the WHO’s four years of work between 2016 and 2020, Swiss youth have become European champions when it comes to weeds. Only in Bulgaria young people use it more often than in this country. At the time, 27 percent of 15-year-old Swiss boys and 17 percent of 15-year-old girls said they had tried cannabis products at least once.

This has consequences. And long-term consequences for the brain, as a new study shows. Yasmin Hurd, 57, the much-cited US neuroscientist and director of the addiction center at Mount Sinai in New York, the largest university hospital in the US, has taken several approaches to the long-term harms of cannabis, particularly in developing countries. To investigate the brains of children and adults and adolescents. On the one hand, he studies the brains of mice in animal experiments, on the other hand, he creates what has been known as a brain database since the 1990s. This includes human tissue samples from amphetamine and heroin users, as well as patients with schizophrenia.

Mice that consumed THC were more likely to become addicted to heroin later on

Animal experiments on mice showed, on the one hand, that animals exposed to cannabis products early, i.e. during adolescence, consumed much more heroin than the comparison group later on when they had the chance. They were also much more sensitive to stress hormones and socially isolated. Early exposure of brain cells to THC also altered responses in the brain’s reward center; This suggests that the drug may alter the brain.

But when you compare the brains of these THC mice with the brains of schizophrenics, it gets really interesting. In schizophrenia, among other things, simply put, the meshwork of individual neurons is disrupted and atrophied. Neurons network with each other in branch-like extensions; The more these networks are, the stronger their brain functions will be. Adult rats and schizophrenics exposed to THC during adolescence showed the same picture: severely vestigial neural networks, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. It controls fear responses, memory, self-control, and planning. This suggests that THC use during adolescence increases the risk of anxiety disorders and depression as well as the later risk of schizophrenia.

Human studies also support concerns that early use may have lasting effects. A study of 799 European adolescents published in 2021 linked marijuana use with thinning of the prefrontal cortex and higher levels of impulsivity.

Whether strong or not; both are harmful

By the way, THC concentration doesn’t matter in all this; Whether you’re smoking or consuming strong or less potent cannabis, both are harmful: low-concentration doses turn the brain’s reaction system into opioids, thereby increasing the Addictive tendencies of cannabis, while high-concentration doses, among other things, provide energy to neurons in the brain called astrocytes. directly damages the given brain cells.

Experts say: Bans don’t work

Stephanie Stucki, research fellow at the Swiss Addiction Coordination and Specialist Unit Infodrog, sees youth exposure to black market products as a major problem: “Prohibitions in drug policy have failed to reduce cannabis consumption and black market hard-to-control things that pose a risk to the health of youth and consumers.” Black market products are sometimes contaminated with pesticides and synthetic cannabinoids and have a high THC content.

“So from the point of view of many experts it would be better to have legal access to quality-controlled cannabis products for adults. But there is also a need for stricter rules on the market,” says Stucki. The products would still be banned for teenagers. and the damage needs to be reduced with treatment measures.

Source : Blick