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The Youngest Addicts

In the United States, the number of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome has increased 123 percent from 2009 to 2014. This syndrome happens when women inject opioids during pregnancy. In the year 2014, 30,445 babies were born addicted to opioids and spent the first months of their lives battling withdrawal symptoms such as tremors, irritability, sleep problems, and high-pitched screaming.

The question most doctors and mothers ask is: how will neonatal abstinence syndrome effect the baby physically and mentally in the long run? This article sites a study where researchers tracked nearly 100 children and their mothers for 36 months. Hendrée Jones, the executive director at UNC Horizons and the co-author of the study, expressed that there were reasons to be optimistic about the children’s fates. “The children through time tended to score within the normal range of the tests that we had,” Jones said.

Dr. Stephanie Merhar, a neonatologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, researched this topic and after studying 87 infants, she found that the children were testing within the normal range of development; she also noted, though, that the risk of serious delays is still very high, and children need to be monitored closely because the long-term affects are still unknown.

While a cause and effect correlation cannot be established yet, Dr. Lauren Jansson, the director of pediatrics at the Center for Addiction and Pregnancy at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, believes that the most promising treatment for children who are exposed prenatally to substances is to treat their mothers to overcome their own addictions.

Risks and “Dangers” of Marijuana Legalization?

Overall evidence for dangers of marijuana do not support continued criminalization.

Steadily it appears that its use will be permitted, though there remains a disconnect between state laws liberalizing possession and growing, vs. federal standards that at least as written, continue to criminalize use and distribution.

As the matter evolves, we should not be naïve to the potential risk of users abusing and developing an addiction to marijuana and its potential impact on cognition, and youth, especially when not used in “moderation.”

A New York Times article, “Legalizing of Marijuana Raises Health Concerns,” states:

“While marijuana can be addictive, scientists generally agree that fewer than 10 percent of marijuana smokers become dependent on the drug, compared with 15 percent for alcohol, 23 percent for heroin and 32 percent for tobacco.

Marijuana does contain carcinogens, including tar and other toxins similar to those found in tobacco, but people generally do not smoke marijuana in the same amounts as cigarettes. Still, legalization takes health consumers into murky territory. Even though marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States, questions about its health effects remain.”

Sounds like the same risks, more or less, of many other legal substances, consumed in excess or misused, including alcohol, prescription drugs, and/or firearms. Whether society should outlaw substances and products that can be used with little risk or high damage is a question that is increasingly being answered at the ballot box.