Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Your Kid and Skunk, the Super-Potent Marijuana

Read Dominique Browning's review of The Lost Child, A Mother's Story by Julie Myerson In today's New York Times Book Review. Chilling. An excerpt:

“I am flattened, deadened. I have nothing in my mind except the deep black hole that is the loss of my child,” she writes in “The Lost Child: A Mother’s Story.” Myerson undergoes a crash course in drugs. Her son is smoking skunk, she learns, a strain of cannabis whose THC content is much more potent than garden-­variety pot — except that it has become garden variety. I had never heard of skunk either, but a quick search online led me to a souk of seeds for the home farmer, advertising up to a toxic 22 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content in some strains. My shopping cart remained empty as I browsed in disbelief. Even as stronger varieties are being bred and marketed, medical research is linking cannabis use to behavioral and cognitive changes reminiscent of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and anxiety disorder. And yet we find ourselves arguing about whether pot is addictive or a gateway drug or should be legalized. We are collectively losing our minds. “The Lost Child” is a cry for help and a plea for a clear acknowledgment of the toll this drug is taking on our children. [empaphsis is healthsifter's]

Are Kids Truly "Addicted" To Video Games?

A study that was initiated by an Iowa State scientist who was skeptical of parental claims that teens were "addicted" to video games has concluded that he was wrong. Kids can become addicted to video games, he says. In fact, the findings suggest that an extraordinary 8.5% of American teens are addicted to video games. The study is reported in today's Washington Post and was published in the journal Psychological Science. The investigators apparently adapted diagnostic guidelines for gambling addiction to create questions about video games, and the questions were incorporated into a 2007 Harris Poll of more than 1,100 American adolescents. Kids were considered addicted if they demonstrated at least 6 of 11 symptoms, as reported in the Post:

 
"Symptoms included spending increasing amounts of time and money on video games to feel the same level of excitement; irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back; escaping problems through play; skipping chores or homework to spend more time at the controller; lying about the length of playing time; and stealing games or money to play more."

Kids who met the diagnostic criteria were categorized as "pathological gamers." No surprise: four times as many boys as girls fit the description. I'm guessing that few people disagree with the concept of gaming addiction, especially those who've watched kids, especially boys, get grabbed by these programs. But even other addiction specialists find the 8.5% figure astounding, according to the Post: 

Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom, contended that game addiction exists but in smaller numbers than the study suggests.

"In all honesty, if there really were 8.5 percent of children who were genuinely addicted, there would be treatment clinics all over America."