Not long ago when Joseph Garbely, chief medical officer for the Caron Foundation, reviewed younger patients starting drug or alcohol treatment on his unit, he usually saw people shaking, sick, and seizing from alcohol or opioid withdrawal. Marijuana was seldom what put them in those medical beds.
“A few years ago, it was rare to see a young person enter Caron with marijuana-induced psychosis,” said Garbely. “Now we see it on a regular basis. Older teens and young adults — approximately ages 18 to 26 — are the most impacted. We see a significant misperception about the safety and efficacy of marijuana among our teen and young-adult patient population.”
Marijuana, legal for medical uses in well over half the states in the country and as a recreational substance in ever more states, is generating increasing concern as a dependency-causing drug capable of serious impairment and harm,...
