CHICAGO (AP) — An influential doctors group is beefing up warnings about marijuana’s potential harms for teens amid increasingly lax laws and attitudes on pot use.
Many parents use the drug and think it’s OK for their kids, but “we would rather not mess around with the developing brain,” said Dr. Seth Ammerman.
The advice comes in a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Monday in Pediatrics. The group opposes medical and recreational marijuana use for kids. It says emphasizing that message is important because most states have legalized medical use for adults, and many have decriminalized or legalized adults’ recreational use.
Those trends have led parents to increasingly ask doctors about kids’ use, said Ammerman, a Stanford University pediatrics professor who co-wrote the report.
`’Parents will say, `I use it moderately and I’m fine with it, so it’s really benign and not a problem if my kid uses it,”‘ he said.
Doctors need to know how to respond to that thinking, and parents and teens need to know the risks, Ammerman said.
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