Multnomah County Issues Report to Fight Underage Use of Legal Marijuana
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
Julia Dilley, a senior research scientist with the county health department and the Oregon Health Authority, as well as the report’s lead author, told GoLocal that to fight against dependence on and underage use of cannabis, public health organizations are relying on methods and techniques that have already shown success.
“We’re looking at policy approaches that have worked for alcohol and tobacco,” Dilley said. “We want to replicate how those systems worked when we talk about this as a public health issue.”
Concerns About Marijuana and Driving
Dilley said one of the health department’s main concerns is monitoring the effects of marijuana on drivers. As of now, no test for determining whether a person is under the influence of the drug, such as breath tests for alcohol impairment, exists, making it more difficult to prove impairment.
Sgt. Peter Simpson with the Portland Police Bureau told GoLocal last week that the Bureau would also be on the lookout for those who drive under the influence of marijuana. He said the Bureau would conduct field sobriety tests blood tests to determine whether or not a driver is impaired. Blood tests can produce positive results for marijuana even if the subject has not consumed any for weeks.
“We’re concerned about people who drive after consuming marijuana,” Simpson said, pointing out that mixing multiple drugs, such as alcohol and marijuana, can strengthen their impairing effects. “We’re asking that people be smart and careful about the inebriation that comes from consuming marijuana.”
Finding Evidence of Marijuana's Heatlh Effects
The Health Department made the recommendations in response to the start of recreational marijuana sales, which began last week. It was created to help the county set policies related to legal recreational marijuana use.
“This is still such a new system that we’re hesitant to say too much that’s definitive,” Dilley said. “The recommendations we landed on came from reviewing the evidence from studies that show a clear link between marijuana and adverse health effects.”
The report also included possible actions that have been endorsed by the American Public Health Association and other experts. Among them are employing tobacco prevention methods in order to keep children and teenagers from smoking marijuana, increasing public education about the risks of long-term marijuana use and dependence and establishing procedures for product quality standards and food safety inspection for marijuana-infused drinks and foods.
Risk During Pregnancy
“During pregnancy and breastfeeding it's one of those areas where studies have been mixed,” Dilley said, noting that the county health department felt the need to recommend this measure in order to protect a potential risk to a vulnerable population. “What we do think is that THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, is passed to the baby via breast milk or other factors. We don’t know what effect that has yet.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana use during pregnancy has been shown to cause gaps in problem-solving skills, memory, and the ability to remain attentive.
Potency
The health department’s plan also calls for policies “that limit product contaminants and high or unknown product potency.”
Dilley said that the potency of marijuana, which measures how much THC is contained in a particular sample of the drug, has been on the rise as of late. She said the health department is concerned about cannabis products that do not explicitly explain how potent its contents are.
“Some packaging, particularly for concentrates or edible products, is not very clear on exactly how much marijuana was used to make it or how strong that marijuana was,” Dilley said. “That can lead to a lot of adverse health effects, particularly for people who aren’t as experienced with marijuana.”
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