Pro
Glen Hanson, DDS, PhD, Associate Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), stated on July 10, 2003 during a marijuana briefing in Salt Lake City arranged by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, as reported in the Deseret News:
“Its [marijuana] effects on the brain function are compounded in adolescents because the behavior center at the frontal cortex is literally not developed…
To use [marijuana] is to take chemical shortcuts to the brain’s pleasure center. It is not like riding a roller coaster or jumping out of an airplane. This is adding chemicals to your brain, not inducing a normal sensation. You are changing the way it normally functions and, in effect, creating a mental disorder. The brain bounces and bounces and finally stops bouncing back to normal.”
July 10, 2003