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September is Suicide Awareness Month, and San Diego health experts all came together Thursday at the City Heights Family Health Centers of San Diego to inform parents about the risks of marijuana use on youth mental health.
Experts have said they have seen a link to mental health and marijuana use.
“Every day I treat patients who suffer from cannabis use disorder,” said Dr. Joe Sepulveda, chief of psychiatry and medical director for substance use disorder services at Family Health Centers San Diego.
Prenatal cannabis exposure following the middle of the first trimester—generally after five to six weeks of fetal development—is associated with attention, social, and behavioral problems that persist as the affected children progress into early adolescence (11 and 12 years of age), according to new research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. These conditions may put these children at a greater risk of mental health disorders and substance use in late adolescence, when youth are typically most vulnerable to these disorders and behaviors.
For 30 years, Dr. Libby Stuyt, a recently retired addiction psychiatrist in Pueblo, Colorado, treated patients with severe drug dependency. Typically, that meant alcohol, heroin, and methamphetamines. But about five years ago, she began to see something new.
“I started seeing people with the worst psychosis symptoms that I have ever seen,” she told me. “And the worst delusions I have ever seen.”
On Wednesday, Aug. 31, 1,303 purple flags were placed on the lawn of the San Diego County Administration Center to commemorate the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and colleagues that San Diegans lost in 2021 to overdose.
NIDA News - NIH supported study found past-month vaping levels rebound after early pandemic. Data for the 2021 survey were collected online from April 2021 through October 2021.
Key findings in the young adult group include:
- Marijuana and hallucinogen use among young adults reached all time-high in 2021.
- Past-year, past-month, and daily marijuana use (use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days) reached the highest levels ever recorded since these trends were first monitored in 1988.
- Past-month marijuana vaping, which had significantly decreased in 2020, rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2021.
- NIH-supported study also found past-month nicotine vaping levels rebound after early pandemic drop