The mayor and police commissioner say giving tickets to people for carrying small amounts of marijuana will help them avoid an arrest record for a minor crime. The founder of one of the city’s biggest rehab centers says, however, that getting handcuffed is only one kind of harm smoking can cause. NY1′s Dean Meminger filed the following report.
Lighting up and getting high—a real problem when teenagers do it.
Child Psychiatrist Mitch Rosenthal started rehab facility Phoenix House nearly 50 years ago.
“Sixty percent or more of the adolescents who have to come into residential treatment and have to be out of their homes and come into Phoenix house are there primarily because of marijuana use,” says Rosenthal.
That’s just ages 12 to 18. Rosenthal says the NYPD’s new policy of giving tickets instead of arresting people for small amounts of marijuana may send the wrong message.
“We don’t want to do anything which is going to increase marijuana use with adolescence. My concern is that this policy makes it seem that marijuana is just no big thing,” he says.
On the contrary, he says it devastates lives and families.
In their announcement about the policy change, the mayor and police commissioner reiterated that smoking marijuana is illegal and they say, with good reason.
“A lot of the unknowns relative to driving under the influence of marijuana, which is very difficult to detect at the very moment. There’s a lot of unknowns,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said Monday.
“Particularly what marijuana can lead to in a young person’s life and the problems that can come from it,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Dr. Rosenthal says those problems can be physical as well. Studies show marijuana use in teens can lead to permanent changes in the brain.
“Marijuana does a bad thing to the brain and to judgement, and to memory and to working memory. People who are using marijuana, kids especially, don’t think well,” Rosenthal says.
The mayor and police commissioner say they want to see what sort of problems arise in states that have legalized recreational marijuana.
Doctor Rosenthal predicts those states will have dire consequences in the years to come.
According to federal health officials, about 10 percent of adults and 20 percent of teens who are regular smokers become addicted to marijuana.
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