♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- (clapping) We speak the truth.
Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- And once again we are joined by someone,
Brad, do you want to introduce him?
- Chris the Pharmacist. - Yep.
- I've known Chris for about 25 or 30 years now,
and he is the man we go to
to get some real good scientific information
about this topic we're gonna go over.
- When you want the authority, this is the guy,
I would say semi-genius, wouldn't I?
Or would you say full genius?
- Yeah, I would say right up-- - Let's lower the bar.
(men laughing)
- All right, today we're gonna talk about
the harms of marijuana/THC on the young brain.
So this is a very important topic, obviously,
as things become legalized and we wanna make sure
we explore it fully. - Right.
And all three of us have children,
all adult children.
Chris still has a high school--
- I still have teenager at home.
(voices interposing)
Yeah, knee deep.
- We can relate to this at a personal level, as well.
- That's right.
By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second,
we're gonna cover up Chris here for a second.
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- There you go.
- All right, Brad, you wanna start things off?
- Well you know, I guess growing up when I was younger,
not that I used, or at least I didn't inhale.
- Way to go, Bill. - Older joke, yeah.
- Does it really hurt a teenager if they smoke marijuana?
What's the big deal?
It's been around, back in the '60s it seems like
it really got popular. - Right.
- And exposed to the public,
and in the media especially.
And also at the same time,
there's a question or how you can justify it.
It's becoming medically legitimate.
They're saying it's legal medically in some states now.
It's a good painkiller.
There's some research being done with cancer
and that kind of thing,
but we need to get this all cleared up.
- Right. - Let's go on--
- Let's listen to the authority.
- Right. - Well at the end of the day,
I mean people smoke marijuana to get high.
I mean that's-- - Recreational.
- It's recreational use.
I think that's probably the area that we'll focus on
because that's where the danger really lies.
And kids are gonna be kids,
and I think it's just something that as parents,
we wanna make sure that
we give them the best possible information we can.
And as far as marijuana, THC which is the active component
which gets you that high effect,
is something that's actually probably very, very dangerous
to a developing brain.
And there are actually some pretty decent studies
that show pretty eloquently why it's a bad thing.
The brain doesn't stop developing
until about 25 years old.
So I guess even really alcohol use,
which is also dangerous for a lot of different reasons,
but we won't sidebar that too much.
But probably shouldn't even drink until you're 25.
So when we take something like marijuana, THC,
it really does affect the teenager's brain.
So there's a lot that happens between 12 and 17,
and continues to happen around 25.
But there's that magic spot right in there
where there's just lots happening in the brain.
- Sure. - And when you smoke marijuana
what happens is you get these chemicals,
it makes you feel funny and high
and all these silly kind of things,
but it actually really stunts brain development.
And those risks that happen are just really traumatic.
I mean, the high rates for depression
and anxiety are huge, off the Richter scale.
I mean we're talking on normal population,
it's between anywhere from depending on the study,
15 maybe 20% of people will suffer from it
without adding any risks.
I mean it's not you're walking by
without a net. - Sure.
- You add marijuana into the fray
in a young developing brain,
and it increases that risk five fold.
- Oh wow. - So it's a much higher,
and not just little bits of depression or anxiety,
but lots where it's actually very,
very clinically significant.
So it's requiring prescriptions,
it's requiring watching out for things
as dangerous as suicide.
So I mean it's something that
we have to be very, very careful with.
- So is-- - It's funny, 'cause I,
oh sorry, Brad, just a friend of my son's smoke marijuana
and I mean it just happened to be that
he does have huge issues with anxiety and depression now.
And I mean I know that's a one case of one.
- Right. - It's just interesting to
observe up front. - Oh yeah.
- But you're talking about studies that reveal this clearly?
- Yeah, and I mean it can go,
there's study after study that shows it very clearly.
And actually the things that are really most damaging
so the younger and the frequency of use
dictate the amount of damage later down the road.
- Okay. - So that's what we really,
that's the take home.
So if you've got a 12, 13, 14, 15 year old kid
that's using this and using it habitually,
you know it's something that
we have to be super careful with
because the risk for anxiety, depression,
like what they show permanently off the,
you're there, you're gonna have problems.
And just to kind of jump it around,
there's a study in Norway that actually had a twin study,
which is kind of interesting.
And it was a small study,
so I don't know that you could necessarily
hang your hat on it, but it's certainly something.
It brought it up where you had
two separate kids, one that did and one that didn't.
- And they were twins? - And they were twins.
- They were twins, so identical twins?
- So you got good matches, so that's what's interesting
about this study is it's,
I mean it was an interesting study.
And it showed that the one that didn't
seemed to be well adjusted and fine,
but there was a much higher incidence of suicidal ideation
in the twin that used. - Wow.
- Now it wasn't real clear on
how much marijuana was consumed,
at what ages, but they showed that
suicidal ideation and depression and anxiety
were very, very high in the ones that did
compared to the twin.
So I think that's something,
even though the study is very small,
I think at least gives a window into
what we have to be prepared for.
So it's something as a parent,
none of us want our children to be exposed
to those types of things. - Sure, right.
- Life is hard enough as it is.
I don't think we need to do anything
to make it any more challenging.
- What about the thing that you often see
in marijuana use in movies that's the lack of ambition.
- Yeah. - Is there anything?
- Oh there's a lot with that,
and that goes with a lot of things
that occur with the smoking of marijuana.
When you're talking about the developing brain,
you have the frontal cortex where all the thinking goes on,
but you have other areas, your hippocampus
where all your memories are processed.
So there's lots of really complex things
happening in that brain,
and that chemical, for whatever reason,
seems to slow down your ability to,
you're apathetic, you're impulsive.
So you're more likely to just,
oh hey that sounds like a good idea.
- Yeah, let's do that, yeah.
- Okay, so we're gonna do that
or we have problems with memory and recall.
Spatial orientation,
so that's just directions to
the local quick mart. - Sure.
- All right, you're gonna take two stop lights,
you're gonna take a right, and then a left.
You know, we all got it. - Yeah.
- Two stop lights, right, and left.
Well all of a sudden they've gone left
and then two stop lights. - Sure.
- So I mean it's something that does affect
how the brain works, and it's interesting.
Some of the studies actually show after periods
of abstinence or not using the product,
what happens is it recovers a little bit, but not great,
and it seems like those effects are probably permanent.
So they have trouble with--
- Especially used at a young age.
- At a young age.
So I mean you have kids that,
so you're in school, you're learning.
They talk about things like verbal fluency,
so when you're learning to use your vocabulary
and different words, you kind of get stuck on one word.
- Right, right, yeah, yeah.
- So it's easy to make fun of
because we see it in the movies.
- Right. - And I think you see
the comical aspects of it.
But it's actually very-- - There's a lot of truth to it
- There's a lot of truth and there's a lot of
very real issues that occur,
and so I think what these kids do not realize,
and I think we can call it, they're children, our children.
- Right. - They don't realize
the damage that they're doing.
They're stunting their development,
they're stunting their intelligence.
They're opening up their lives to possible,
really sadness, misery, and anxiety.
And so just for the short term gains,
because maybe societal pressures, peer pressure.
Hey I'm doing it, so you gotta do it.
Now you're cool, now you're not.
I mean there's a lot of things,
it's very hard to be a teenager.
And I think in this day and age,
it's probably harder than it was
than even when we were kids. - Right, sure, right.
- I think there's so many more choices
and options that are available to that.
- The fact now that it's being legalized
in a lot of areas, I mean is society saying
yeah it's okay now.
- It sends mixed messages,
and I think again, everybody is free to choose,
but I think at least until that brain is 25,
I think it's, and even then after 25,
there's still studies that show
it's not a good thing, either.
But there's also aspects of marijuana use
that can be good as far as pain relief
and cancer relief. - Sure.
- Seizure control, so I mean it's a slippery slope
and we have to be very, very careful with what we're doing.
But in the case of our kids-- - In those instances,
what you're talking about, though,
is basically again choosing your poison to some extent.
It's gonna be a lot better to use marijuana
than maybe some of the opioids.
- Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I would not say,
yeah, there's lesser evils.
We're not gonna tell you to go out
and find some meth or find some heroin.
I mean those are all very bad.
- Right. - I mean they're all bad,
let's face it, at some point or another,
people use it recreationally.
But I've been guilty of having a beer at a local tavern,
and it's certainly something that,
and my friends can certainly attest
to how many beers I've had.
So it's certainly something to be aware of.
- And that's the argument quite often they make
is like, well they legalized alcohol.
And the thing is, though, that alcohol is bad.
- Yeah. - And so is marijuana.
And so is if we legalize another drug.
- Yep. - They're all bad.
we're just adding to the mix there basically.
- Exactly.
- We were talking earlier, Chris,
and you had mentioned there was a study on,
was it your IQ or something about your cognition?
- Yeah, yeah. - With the use,
without the use of marijuana and with it, or the THC.
- Yeah, so they actually,
there are some good studies that actually show
that your IQ can drop as much as eight points.
So I mean-- - And I don't have
eight points to lose. - Exactly.
- I don't know about you, but. - Exactly.
If there were a drug that would give me eight to 10 points
of intelligence, I'm all about it.
But when you're going backwards
and you're old and it's one of those things where--
- Right. - I don't wanna lose
those eight points. - Sure.
- And when you're in a developing mind,
it's even more serious because
the damage that you do then is probably more permanent.
- Right. - So we're gonna have
problems down the road.
And so it's like we want these kids
to emerge and flourish. - Right.
- And the last thing we want 'em doing is going backwards.
- Right. - We just can't do that.
- Especially when it sounds like it's a permanent thing.
The damage is done. - Yeah.
- Through the growing mind. - Correct.
- And it's not gonna correct itself like lungs.
If you're smoking, you quit smoking,
your lungs-- - Do regenerate.
- Regenerate, and not the case.
- I mean there is an extent with abstinence
where it does get better,
but it never seems to get to where that baseline is.
- Sure. - So you'll never really
get that greatness that you once had.
So it's kind of one of those things where I mean,
these kids for the most part come out and they're perfect,
for the most part, unless there's other mitigating factors,
but as all the, and every day you live
is a little bit closer day to death.
- Sure. - So I mean it's kind of,
so why would we do anything that's gonna make that path
from A to B more difficult? - Sure.
- And I think unfortunately when a developing brain,
it can. - Now you're mentioning, too,
that some of the doses now of marijuana
are much more potent than-- - Oh yes.
- What people might remember that
they may have tried as a kid.
- Yeah, I think what happened in the '60s
and '70s and '80s, we've had some
very smart botanists out there that
really know how to manipulate plant genes.
And they can structure the types of,
I guess for lack of anything better to say, highs
that they can manufacture. - Sure.
- And so it's interesting,
because I think there's some medical aspects
that it can be certainly researched
and hopefully moved forward with some of these scientists.
But at the same time, I think we have to be careful again
with the age of things and the exposure.
We just have to be so careful to the damage
that we can do with the brain.
I mean it's just something that we have to care to care.
- You know we were talking just a little bit ago
about that they're changing genetically the plant.
And I can relate to that because my nephew just got his PhD
in agronomy and he's been literally,
he tells me about it in the stories that
he's growing grass, actually, grass seed,
and they wanna make the grass seed better,
like in your lawn. - Yeah.
- And it's amazing what they've done with,
he's telling me about it. - What they can do.
- Oh there's a Bill Murray reference in there.
- Someone with his knowledge and decided well,
if I can do this with grass seed,
I'll do it with, I hope he's not watching.
But yeah, so I can just imagine that they can really,
in other words, one joint from the '60s
versus one joint today, modified,
the level of THC could be doubled or tripled?
- It's much, I don't know that
we have a straight percentage.
- Sure. - But I think what you can say
is that the level of THC produces a more potent high.
I think you can take that to the bank.
- Sure. - So from that standpoint,
they just understand, like I said,
how to manipulate the plant genes.
And so in the case of your nephew,
it's just another plant that we can manipulate genes.
- Sure. - And you see it
all over the place, it's the genetically modified organisms.
- Yeah. - Sure.
- It's something that they're gonna continue to do it
and maybe even make it a better plant.
I meant haven knows what's gonna happen out there
in the future, but I think there's so much research
that we need to do for the safety
of everybody that's involved.
What are the dangers, obviously.
There's respiratory illness,
there's going to be cardiac issues.
Obviously the mind is what I typically focus on.
But it's certainly something,
we have to be very, very careful with.
- Sure, sure.
- And there's emerging evidence,
there's this cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome
and it's something that ER doctors have kind of reported.
And it's an interested article.
- And hyperemesis is being-- - Throwing up a lot.
- A lot. - Profusely.
- To the point where actually, they dehydrate
and all these other really bad things happen in the body
to the point where it can actually cause death.
And I think that's the thing that
we have to take away from it.
I mean-- - Not recognizing it
in ERs for being caused by marijuana.
- Well, yeah, and it's being recognized now
because it's becoming more of a hot topic.
I mean it's been misdiagnosed.
I think the problem is,
is that there's a very casual thought
that marijuana's not that big of a deal.
And I think it is a big deal,
and it should be treated.
Alcohol, I think, is actually worse than marijuana.
If you were gonna pick the two poisons.
I mean if you look at the addictive scale,
alcohol comes in well ahead of marijuana.
But it's certainly something that has
it's own emerging set of problems
and I think over the next 20 years,
we're gonna see more and more of these.
But going back to that hyperemesis, the throwing up,
there was an example of a young lady
that she was 27 years old and she kinda,
she knew she had this.
And she figured, well one more night's not gonna kill me.
And so she kinda went out on, I guess for lack
of anything better to say, a marijuana bender,
and she partook of various different foods
and types of smoking. - And this was at a restaurant
you were saying? - Yeah, just restaurant.
I mean it's something that's kind of a fad thing out west.
I mean I think you'll see a lot in California for sure.
- Yeah. - That's where they have
clever chefs that try and add this to make things
at least get people through the door.
- Right. - From that standpoint,
but so she went through, but the take away is that
she ingested tons and tons of marijuana that night
and it landed her in the ER.
And it ultimately put her in the hospital for days,
and the study I believe said three days,
and she nearly died.
There's a really tragic story, same article,
of a 17 year old boy that had the same thing,
was vomiting so profusely and dehydrating
and everything else that went with it,
it shut down all his organs
and he passed away at 17 years old.
- Wow. - And what these physicians
are noticing is that it's a,
that they didn't realize that it was probably
from marijuana use and so it was being treated
as stomach ailments or maybe a virus.
And now your astute physicians,
and they're all sharp.
I mean I think, well for the most,
I mean it's one of those things where
they're becoming more and more aware
of this particular condition. - Sure.
- And I think as it becomes more decriminalized
and more people use more of it.
- We'll see more of it. - I think it's simply
a small example-- - Yeah.
- Of, I think, the dangers yet to come.
And so I think that's the take home is,
as parents, as friends, you just wanna make sure
that your friends and loved ones are being taken care of.
- Sure, right. - We don't want anybody
to go down that route. - You may just have
saved someone, Chris, because we've seen it
more than once on our channel where
we've warned people of something
and they've email us later and said that,
because of you we figured this out.
This is why we're vomiting. - Well, maybe.
And it's just a dramatic example, for sure.
And I chose that simply because it is a dramatic example.
But I mean it's something-- - But it's a real possibility.
- It's real and it is a possibility
and we're seeing many, many more people affected by it,
And another friend of mine is a physician
and he's like, just you wait.
You're gonna see an eruption of problems
associated with marijuana.
So respiratory, cardiac, obviously the mind
which we kind of gravitated to through this program.
And so it's something that I think
we have to take with a grain of salt
with our youth in particular,
but even those choices as adults,
we have to be careful with it.
- I think if some of the states wait long enough,
they'll watch some of these other states
that have legalized it, they'll start to see
the issues cropping up there unfold.
- Right. - Yeah, it's hard to deny
the money, unfortunately. - Right, right.
- So that's where-- - That's the problem.
- Schools and bridges, I mean it's crazy.
- It all becomes-- - Wow, another conundrum
that our society is going to--
- Have to face. - Right.
We'll get through it.
People like Chris. - Yep.
- Our channel can educate some people
and help it out.
- All right, thanks again to Chris for coming.
Well done. - You bet, you bet.
- Bravo. - Excellent job, Chris.
- Thanks, guys. - Thanks for watching.
(upbeat tones)