- Special thanks to tonight's sponsor, Bath Iron Works.

We're gonna open our show tonight by taking a look at medical marijuana and how it can be used effectively in some limited conditions.

But mostly tonight, we're gonna take a stand that high-THC content in marijuana is a growing health crisis and something we need to keep away from our young people.

As always, our format is to let people tell their own stories in their own words, and then viewers can draw their own conclusions.

(dramatic music) Maine's natural beauty can't hide that many of our friends and family become attached to addictive drugs and alcohol.

This series is intended to draw attention to this reality while humanizing, educating, and elevating the potential for change.

The people we profile demonstrate that transformation and serve as an inspiration for those still struggling.

Please join us as we introduce you to Maine's "Voices of Hope".

(dramatic music continues) - I think that there are some benefits of medical marijuana for people with chronic pain.

There are patients who have neuropathic pain, arthritic pain.

- [David] Many people believe that medical marijuana can be used to help control pain.

- Yeah, so back in April, I was surfing down in Rye, New Hampshire, went to duck dive under a wave, and the wave took me and the board, and it took the board out my hand and basically ripped my arm out of the socket, dislocated it completely.

Because I did take the opiates at first, I was in so much pain, right, like, that put me into, like, a deep, dark place.

I was seeking alternative methods and ways to manage the pain.

And so friends of mine had put me onto another doctor who uses THC and various components of the cannabinoid system to manage pain, among other things.

Like, I think with THC, it's still pretty trial-and-error.

My understanding is they don't have a exact science around dosing yet, and it's on a per-person basis.

Some of the negative side effects, I mean, I'm noticing some memory stuff.

So short-term memory is probably not as sharp as it was prior to the surgery.

I'm not drawing a direct line to cannabis, but I mean, you probably could.

I'm also probably not as sharp as I was before, so probably a little bit slower, just in terms of, like, thinking and articulating some of my words.

It just depends on the day as well.

Some days are better than others.

- [David] Most people will agree that Drew has every right to use marijuana for pain relief, especially under medical supervision.

However, legalization in Maine has resulted in a largely unregulated commercial drug enterprise, marketing highly potent THC products to an unsuspecting population.

- There's some role for cannabis products in certain patient types, people with chronic pain, this sort of thing.

But generally speaking, we're in this very, very large social experiment, which is fraught with a lot of risk.

(solemn music) - Having this shop has exposed me to a great variety of patients and cannabis needs.

Working with younger people has been a little bit challenging due to the stigma and the extra care that's needed in overseeing their treatments.

And a lot of the doctors are not willing to step up and oversee that type of treatment because there's not the research in the United States supporting its use or dissuading its use.

And we all know that kids have developing brains.

They're not meant to have all these different substances in their bodies.

However, when I look at both sides, meaning that doctors are prescribing pharmaceuticals to these children very, very young, I'm having parents come in here with kids as young as four, where their doctors have recommended that they use ADHD medicines, which is a form of methamphetamine, on these developing brains.

And they don't have a problem with that.

They're doing it.

Whereas we're finding that cannabis is less harmful than some of these other substances, and it has a worse stigma around it.

The seizure patients, knowing that THC and CBD combinations can help stop the seizures, but yet they're on phenobarbital and other types of harmful drugs that comatose these kids.

So if it's coming from a pharmaceutical company, it seems to be okay.

And the double standard is that a plant that we are not seeing long-term effects is condemned and not taken seriously as a first-line medication.

- But for someone who's looking for a higher dosage, they can use some of the concentrated products and put it in this device and inhale it.

- Correct, using the the concentrated oils is preferable for a lot of people because they can use less of it.

It's fearful for some people because that's the high THC.

In one gram, you may have 700, 800 milligrams of THC in a gram of oil.

For most people who use it, they're using just a small little bit.

That's why they call it a dab because they're just putting a little dab, and that's all they need.

Can it be abused?

Absolutely.

Being in the cannabis industry myself, I've had a lot of calls from patients that are questioning how they're feeling, that they took more than they thought they were going to and they're having side effects, and they don't like it, what do they do?

I think that it really starts with education.

- [David] Visits to hospital emergency rooms tell a different story.

In 2022, Maine Health's 12 emergency departments recorded more than 5,000 visits for adverse effects from marijuana use.

26% of those patients were teens, and this number is 53% higher than in 2021, increasing more rapidly than any other age group.

- My name is Ken Finn.

I'm a pain medicine physician.

I've been practicing in Colorado Springs for over 25 years.

I am the editor of the first US medical textbook, "Cannabis in Medicine: An Evidence-Based Approach," with over 70 authors in four countries and 20 chapters.

Based on all of my knowledge and everything I know, I believe there may be components of the plant that may have pain-relieving qualities, and that's based on scientific molecular data, scientific information.

But when you translate that science on the THC molecule and translate it into real-life evidence, it doesn't work.

And you know, one of the platforms to legalize is that it's gonna help our drug problem and our opioid epidemic and our overdose epidemic, which is what I'm calling it now, because fentanyl has really spun off into a beast, and most of these overdoses are unintentional.

However, if you're looking at the scientific literature on the use of cannabis in pain, the science is very weak, especially when you're looking at dispensary cannabis.

(gentle pensive music) - So I was 13 when I first started smoking weed.

I was in eighth grade, and all of my friends have older siblings that are all in high school partying, doing this and that.

So I would go over to their house, and their older siblings would be like, "Hey, do you guys wanna come to a party with us?"

And of course, we're gonna be like, "Yeah, the older kids, they're cool.

Let's go hang out with them."

So we would go hang out with them, and that's when I'm seeing all the drinks go around and the blunts getting passed and bongs getting handed around.

And they're offering us if we want to try, and of course, I'm gonna say yeah.

I want to be known as the cool eighth grader that's doing this stuff with high schoolers.

So I tried smoking weed, and right after that first hit, I was just like, "This is my thing.

This was created for me.

I need this in my life."

- I realized at 16, when he got his first arrest for medical marijuana, that he needed help, that he was turning into an addict, just like so many people that my life has been surrounded by.

- It doesn't matter, like, how old you are, 16, 17, 18, under 21.

Just nowadays, you have so many resources to go get it for you, either friends that are actually over the age of 21, friends that are 18 that just got their med card, so they're legal.

Like, it doesn't matter.

We're all in active addiction.

(solemn music) - So a lot of what I talk to parents about is there's a dose-dependent relationship related to the risks of marijuana in particular.

So that means the earlier you start using, the more often you use it, the higher potency you use it, and the longer you use it, I'll increase your risk.

- So what we know from oral use is that the amount and potency has gone up quite a lot and exponentially.

So, high dose is the rule.

High dose has become the norm.

And that just magnifies the problem because this is not the 1970s when it was getting high after school.

This is high dose, 30, 50, 100 milligrams of pure THC in orals.

In vaping, you're getting pure, concentrated THC.

And then there are dabs, which is distillate THC, that's often added to marijuana and smoked or vaped.

So these are essentially pure doses of tetrahydrocannabinol that has profound effects in the parts of the brain, the frontal lobe, the parts that develop thinking, that need the time to develop.

And it takes till age 25 for those parts of the brain to develop.

And interestingly, it's those parts of the brain that are rich in receptors for cannabis, cannabinoid receptors.

- The highest amount of THC was probably 250 that I've taken, but I never did too much because it always, even just, like, the littlest bit got me really high, but I would always be trying to test my limits with, oh, I can do more.

I would just take one bong rip, and I'd be high, and I'm seeing everyone else taking, like, six and seven.

So I'm like, "All right, it's time to get my tolerance up."

So I would always be testing my limits with trying to bring it up, trying to show everyone else I can smoke how they do.

And then that got me to the point where I'd be greening out, not knowing where I am, driving home, greening out, throwing up, pulling over on the side of the road, trying to get some fresh air, all my windows down, sunroof open, swerving in between the lines, like, not knowing where I was or what road I was going on.

- You know, these days, you can get 18%, 25%, 60%, 90% potency of THC in marijuana, and so it is really not the same plant.

It has been chemically concentrated so that you're really getting a very intense high.

I mean, I've seen the argument that people have thought, "Oh, well, if it's intense, that means that people are gonna use less often."

I mean, that's not my experience when I talk to kids.

They're using, you know, every day, twice a day.

Some kids are smoking all day long.

You know, that has not changed how much people are using.

They just have gotten tolerant to it, and then they think that's what they need to reach, you know, reach their state of, you know, whatever they're looking for.

- Dabs was a big thing for me.

It hit harder.

So anytime I was, like, on a trip up at Sunday River with my buddies, they have two Puffcos going with dabs in it, and they're both for me 'cause I love to smoke.

So I would be hauling off one, and then when that one was empty, I'd go right to the next one after it's done heating.

And it was just, like, an everyday thing.

But I mostly chose smoking flower over dabs and edibles.

(gentle music) - So I have some examples of the dab pens and the vape pens that we've confiscated at school over the years.

And so, you know, I know that some of you are familiar with them, but some of you might not be.

And this was one of the cartridges one of my custodians found in the girls' restroom, and she thought, you know, was interesting.

And on the back of this, it says Purple Rain Indica, but the total THC in this is 82.73%, yeah.

So what Laura Stack in her video was discussing is, you know, marijuana in the '80s and '90s was anywhere from 2 to 5%, 2 to 5% THC.

And then right around the turn of the century, genetic engineering, people, you know, she called it the botanist, we started hybridizing, you know, highly concentrating the marijuana to be about, now it's about 18 to 25% in the flower.

So the flower stuff would be, like, the skunky, smelly stuff that people would need a joint or a bowl or a blunt for.

But if you are smoking, or if some people you know are smoking out of the vape pens or the dab pens, this oil here, you know, that comes in these cartridges like that, most people aren't using 20% in here.

It's 45, 50, 55, 60, 82.

It can go up to as high as, we've seen, as about 95% THC.

And I think, yeah, I think as a society, we're not doing a strong enough job of educating our young people, educating our parents on how different these devices are and what these devices use as their substance, their concentration of cannabis It's just out of control.

And the higher the dose, the higher the concentration of the THC, the more likely we are seeing the drug-induced psychosis and the diagnoses of, you know, illnesses like schizophrenia.

- In the last year, I had two students overdose, and they left us.

I would say I teach at a school that's smaller, and my school has a population of about 100 kids.

I would say out of that 100 kids, 95 of them, at least, smoke weed on a daily basis.

That's because their parents supply it, and they don't have any knowledge of what they're actually doing when they dab, which I would say because of the smell, they don't wanna smell like weed when they're at school.

You know, so they're dabbing, they're using edibles, and they're using it at concentrates so high that they cannot function, cannot function if they are not high.

I think the ramifications of the amount of weed that kids are using is that, A, they have such lack of emotion, they have no empathy.

They are losing the ability to connect to other people.

They're finding themselves isolated.

When they're isolated, they have these weird paranoias where they have, they've created all of these anxieties that don't even exist, but because they're already isolated or because they've already taken themselves out of a community setting, you know, that paranoia just builds on itself, on itself.

So what we're seeing as teachers in the community that I teach in, kids just drop, they go away.

You don't hear from them.

They don't ask for help.

They are in a state of depression that's so lengthy and so vivid that they are just gone.

They walk in just like a zombie.

They don't have color to their face.

They probably haven't showered for a couple of days.

Things that are so normal that we take for granted as adults, like showering, hygiene, brushing your teeth, having eyes that look awake, being able to smile with your eyes.

I can't remember the last time I saw a kid smile with his eyes.

Yeah, so it's to the point where they're just losing their soul.

(suspenseful music) - Before moving to Maine, it was mostly okay.

That time of the day is here, I want to smoke.

I was still developing a habit.

That's how I would describe it.

Really, really too far with the weed.

I was smoking, like, as soon as I wake up.

I was doing meditation in the morning for one hour.

I smoke before that.

And after meditation, smoke another blunt.

Then you go shower.

Basically, you got to a point before doing anything, shower, cooking, getting out of the house, coming at home, going to bed, every activity was being preceded by a big old blunt.

And I started noticing, obviously, time add up.

The amount of time it takes to roll, that's like 10 minutes.

The amount of time it takes you to smoke it, then when you feel like you want another one, that means you gonna roll another one, that's an hour.

So for me, I think I watched it go up as it was a prerequisite for everything else.

Let's say average of three times a day, but there are days where I go a whole day and smoke in the evening.

There are days where I just smoke during lunch.

The potency is usually something between 25% and 32%.

I have tried other forms of consuming my cannabis, in edible form, in concentrates.

And to me personally, it has always been terrible.

Also, there is no timing on when it hits you.

It can hit you whenever it wants.

And that can really, really mess you up.

As somebody who likes being in control of your life, like being aware of what you're doing, you don't want that.

I've realized I was spending a lot of money on weed.

Like, every time I could sit down with my wife and a budget, it's like, how much are you spending on weed?

It's shameful, it's, like, literally, we're looking at ounce a week.

So $300 a week, 200, between 200, 300, depending on where you source your herb.

If you want good stuff, it's gonna be expensive.

Something about substances, I don't want to be free with it, I don't want to be free of them, I wanna win over them.

Like, I want to be able to have it when I want to and not do it when I don't want.

I would say I am addicted to marijuana, yeah.

- [David] Studies have shown that one in six kids who start marijuana use before age 18 become addicted.

And for daily uses, the risk of addiction rises to 50%.

- When it comes to cannabis and adolescents, the data's very concerning.

There was a very good paper out of "JAMA Pediatrics," most people know what "JAMA" is, the journal of the AMA.

If you look at the very early onset users, you're looking 12 to 17 years of age, and you compare them to the same age group that started with opioids, about a year later, they have a very similar addiction rate of about 10 to 11%, right?

Three years later, the ones that had started with marijuana had a twice-as-high addiction rate than the ones that started with opioids.

- Marijuana, you know, can certainly make people feel like they can't live without it.

I hear a lot of people tell me they don't feel normal if they're not high.

And so that feeling that people have is what really drives a lot of the addiction that's hard to manage.

And that, in some ways, is actually harder to deal with than the physical addiction.

- I was smoking way too much.

I relied on it way too much.

Just to even go to, like, a family dinner, I was getting high.

And little things like that, I shouldn't have been getting high for.

I should have been present and actually spending time with my family.

But in order for me to go to that event, I had to physically not be there.

The alcohol was a major problem, but the pot was even more of a problem.

It gave me an eating disorder.

So the only way I would eat food is if I smoked weed and I felt high, 'cause then I could be like, "Oh, I can eat anything."

Like, I'm so hungry now, I can eat whatever.

But when I didn't smoke or I was out of weed, I freaked out.

I was like, I can't eat right now.

I'm not high.

I can't eat, I can't eat, I can't eat.

I just had to be high.

Anywhere I went, I was probably smoking seven to eight times a day.

Between waking up at six o'clock, getting ready for school, like, 6:15, I would have my bong filled up with water, packed, and I'd be smoking.

- So it became this series of me trying to figure out how to breathe, me trying to figure out how to help him.

He'd lost 35 pounds.

He wasn't eating.

I was trying to help him cut back on the marijuana, said he was only using it occasionally, but then he wasn't eating, so he was losing weight.

So you're watching your child become thinner and thinner, you know, fading away to nothing and couldn't sleep, couldn't wake up.

He needed something every day to wake, to sleep, to eat, to function.

- I never thought I had hit rock bottom.

Even after getting arrested at 16, I didn't think I had a problem Getting criminal trespassing charges at 17, I didn't think I had a problem.

Running from cops with dogs on us after parties, I didn't think I had a problem.

But after I got my OUI charge, that's when I really thought I hit rock bottom, not having a license for 2 1/2 years, facing jail time, $600 fine, and a year and a half of probation, and not being able to leave the state of Maine.

After that, that's when it really clicked that I had hit rock bottom.

- My son has lost a lot of friends in a very short time.

He's only 18 years old.

His first friend took her life in middle school.

He had another friend take her life a few years ago.

He had someone this summer that he knew, I still don't know all the details of how he knew him.

I'm pretty sure they were using together while he was here in town.

And when he went back home, he smoked laced fentanyl marijuana, and he died.

He's lost three more people that he met just in the last five months while in rehab and sober living.

They've all ODed and died.

It's part of this addiction, and it's part of the struggle that they go through every single day.

But when we can start to understand the disease model and start to understand that they can't just stop, I have people say, "Just tell him to stop," his body can't stop.

He starts, he cannot stop.

And so the trick for them is to stay working their programs so that they can stop, because once they start, they can't.

(gentle music) - You know, so whether marijuana or not is a gateway drug, I think that you have to think about the line in the sand that you draw when you start doing things to alter your reality.

So marijuana is very common, it's very accessible.

And so I think that once you've taken that step to alter your reality, that makes it easier for you to go on to alter it in another way.

I think there are plenty of people that smoke marijuana that don't go on to do other substances, but then there's gonna be a subset that said, "Well, you know, I did that, that seemed okay."

You know, and then somebody will offer them something different, and they'll try that.

So I think that the question is, is that once you have changed your viewpoint on what's acceptable and what's an experiment, that just makes you more open to try other things.

- So we know that year by year by year, we have an increased number of opioid overdoses and drug overdoses across the country, and that strongly correlates with more states legalizing for both medical and recreational purposes.

But the data's very, is clear.

It's only getting worse.

So if anybody can show me where and how expanded marijuana programs are helping our drug problem, I'd like to see the data because it's certainly not consistent with the medical literature and all the other national, international pain organizations that do not support the use of cannabis for pain.

(quirky music) - If there was one thing I'd like people to know, it would be to not be afraid to ask for help when you're struggling.

Asking for help when you're struggling is one of the bravest things you can do.

As a youth, you know, marijuana and alcohol is just what's available.

That's kind of what you're around.

And then as, you know, you're kind of in that world, you learn of other things, and you learn of other substances.

And it definitely, you're more susceptible to trying other things when you're under THC.

You're just not thinking clearly.

So I started drugs when I was 12 years old, and I was in active addiction by, I would say, about 18 till I was 29.

You know, it started with marijuana, and it kept on increasing to bigger and bigger drugs.

So then it was ecstasy, then it was, you know, Oxycontin.

And by the end of my using, I was sniffing heroin.

There were many lines that I promised myself that I would never cross, and I crossed them.

You know, and I remember looking, you know, in the mirror a lot and saying, you know, "I'm not gonna do this again tomorrow," and I was right back at it.

By 21, I had overdosed, and my mother found me.

It was Thanksgiving morning, and it was a real eye-opener for me, or so I thought.

I was in the hospital and had family surrounding me, and I was, you know, surrounded by people.

You know, I had a breathing tube keeping me going and telling me that, you know, I may or may not make it.

Fortunately, I was able to come through, and I really knew the extent of my issue when it was about three months from that situation, and I was already back to using Oxycontin again.

I couldn't find anything that worked for me until I was sent to a inpatient rehab in New Hampshire, and they taught me about the 12 Steps, and I was immersed into the AA community.

I would've never imagined feeling, you know, as confident as I do today.

I can remember back in active addiction and not being able to look at myself in the mirror.

Today, and after receiving, you know, really great help and the support of family, friends, and, you know, the AA fellowship really, you know, I can look at myself today, and I'm proud of who I am.

I never wanted to admit defeat.

I never wanted to feel like I wasn't capable of handling myself.

And I finally had to surrender.

For the youth, for us to be, you know, glorifying, you know, the use of THC, that it's, you know, this healthy plant-like substance, I think is just, you know, wrong on many levels.

I hate to see any kid or anybody, you know, fall into the trap of, you know, recreationally, you know, starting drugs.

It becomes a habit very quickly, and it happens quicker than you can ever imagine.

- In 10 years, if I was still in active use, not making changes in my life like I am right now, I think I would be doing way harder drugs, not having money, not having a steady job, isolating, I probably would already be dead.

I probably would've either died from overusing, or I would've killed myself.

(pensive music) - So we have the data showing it is harmful for the brain because the brain is the target organ in the world of cannabis.

I mean alcohol, it's the liver.

Tobacco, it's the lung.

And marijuana, the brain is the target organ.

- And what we do know, and know really, really well, is that people who are young whose brains haven't fully developed are at real risk to the downsides and risks of cannabis.

And that includes, on average, an eight-point reduction in intelligence quotient, IQ.

We really have to begin to think about the risk of psychiatric disturbance in youth exposed to cannabis.

Because of the hybrids that are made and cultivation techniques, this is super powerful stuff, which is 25 to 30% THC by weight.

And that dose, that high dose has profound impacts on developing brain and the ability to develop reality-testing, the ability to differentiate self from other, the ability to know if somebody is talking to you or if you're having a hallucination.

Some of these are symptoms of a disorder called psychosis, and if symptoms like hallucinations or ideas like paranoia, feeling as if people can control your mind, if those symptoms persist for months, that's schizophrenia.

- I'm concerned with the level of psychosis, the level of unhealthy dependence to cannabis that comes with daily consumption of anything beyond 10%.

That I'm aware, I learned about it a little bit later through a friend of mine whose sister, they live in New York, they were struggling to find a mental health for their sister.

Their sister was still under 18.

She's been consuming cannabis for a long time.

The outcome was psychosis.

So a friend of mine, we went to school together, he told me about this, he says like, "This is real."

And I'm surprised it hasn't happened to me.

And I'm surprised, maybe happened to me that I didn't know.

That kind of shook me, kind of shocked me.

The next thing I know is, like, I'm lucky.

I'm lucky that I started consuming around after 18.

At least my brain was already developed.

So to be honest with you, it's 100% luck, the fact that I'm not experiencing those effects.

But trust me, I have a friend who was here, smoked with me more than one blunt, whoa, hundreds.

(imitates brain spiraling) He flipped.

Big man is now in a mental hospital in Africa.

The parents can't keep him here, and they're wealthy enough to take him back home.

- So we are halfway through our first semester this fall at USM, and we are seeing a tsunami of students with mental health crises, ranging from anxiety and depression to suicidal ideation and an increase in cannabis use.

So one of the other things that we're seeing really over the last two years is this group of students, smaller group of students who are showing signs of what we call cannabis-induced psychosis.

So these are students that are having problems with paranoia, they're having problems with reality-testing.

They're describing kind of bizarre behaviors that they engage in.

You know, it's incredible.

It just, it's so worrisome that there's such a cavalier attitude that it's so helpful with everything without understanding its long-term impact and how it affects, you know, a growing and a maturing brain.

- Like, when I was little, I always thought I'm never gonna drink or use weed or just anything.

And I really meant it 'cause I didn't wanna end up like that.

And then I had my first drink when I was 16.

I just remember the more that I drank it, the more that I wanted.

I just remember that sort of planted a seed of, like, a feeling that I kind of just chased for the rest of my drinking.

I stopped being able to sleep, and I started having severe panic attacks almost every day.

And so I was prescribed some anxiety medications for that.

And I instantly started to abuse them, just 'cause they made me feel so good.

And then I started smoking weed every day.

And how early I was doing it in the day started creeping earlier and earlier and earlier, and then I was drinking as much as I possibly could.

I tried to replace the drinking sometimes with smoking weed, but something had, like, flipped in my brain, I don't know what, but I just wasn't processing it the same.

And whenever I'd smoke it, I'd become completely psychotic, sometimes, like, losing touch with reality, and I had some of the most scary experiences I've ever had ever because I was just, like, hallucinating, faceless people, hearing whispers, becoming really convinced of bizarre things were happening.

I had heard about how high-potency marijuana could cause psychotic symptoms.

It just had never really done it to me before.

I guess it was a bit of a surprise, and it was scary 'cause I was afraid it wouldn't stop, like, I would just always feel like that.

But the feeling would eventually go away, thank God.

- So psychosis is what's considered a thought disorder, and so people can have psychotic symptoms for all kinds of reasons.

And there's all kinds of psychotic symptoms.

So the thing that people normally think about is hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there.

But there's actually a lot of different kinds of psychotic symptoms, including disorganization, not being able to tell reality from fantasy, thinking you're living in a movie.

I have people that have tactile hallucinations that feel that they have spiders crawling up and down their arms.

I have people that have paranoid delusions.

They, you know, think the CIA is after them, think people are after them, see their faces change.

So there's all kinds of different symptoms that people can have.

- So a few years ago, I would say four-ish years ago, I went through a rough time where I lost my father to cancer, I went through a breakup, my daughter was having a few issues as a teenager, as a lot of teenagers do.

And I was trying to cope, I wasn't sleeping, I had a lot of anxiety.

And I thought, oh, I went to Boulder, Colorado, at the time because that's where you could buy, I was visiting a friend, and you can buy gummies with cannabis in them, THC, and before Maine was allowing that.

And I bought a bunch, and I thought, "Oh, yay, I get candy, and I get some sort of anxiety relief, and I get to sleep."

So I bought a bunch, and then I don't remember the exact progression of things, but I started to take a couple a day, and I think I was sleeping a little better.

And I kind of liked the mellow tingle or the buzz I was getting from the gummies.

And I think at one point, I was up to four a day, which is probably 40 milligrams of THC and not really understanding how quantity impacts different people.

I kind of just got into the habit of doing that, but it was not forever, it was maybe a couple weeks.

It resulted in a real effect on my brain where one point at one day, I kind of just cracked and really felt like I was completely out of touch with reality as I knew it.

Waiting for a UFO, thinking my dead father was coming, and waiting for my daughter to come in on a rainbow felt very normal.

I remember every single feeling, but in that experience, it felt 1,000% normal.

And I went to the emergency room, they did a brain scan, and it was all apparently normal, but I didn't feel normal.

I felt like I was really tapped into some other dimension.

And I was hallucinating, and I went to the hospital, and they didn't do anything except go home and sleep and maybe stop taking edibles.

And I did exactly what they said, and I snapped out of it.

I felt a little weird for the next few weeks, but I didn't touch edibles, and I kind of came back to normal.

Fast forward to last summer, I hadn't touched anything in a couple years, at least.

And a friend was said, "Hey, you wanna try a gummy?"

I said, "Sure," it's been a while.

I wasn't 100% clear that the previous episode was directly linked to the use of those edibles.

But then last summer, I took one edible, and the effects were instantaneous within that couple hour, well, in that day, I knew it was related to the edible.

And again, I really, really, really lost touch with the reality I was in in that day.

You know, some lucky people only have the psychotic symptoms while they're using, and then they go away, but that is unfortunately not everyone.

(sighs) It's really unfortunate because I have gotten to the point that I assume, almost, that everyone's had exposure to marijuana and they come in with early psychosis, which is not the case.

But I do have, I'd say, it's a fraction of the people I see who did not start with marijuana.

So I have seen everything from, I had a patient that I was treating for, you know, a couple years for anxiety and ADHD, went off to college, really had one experience with marijuana, and then went off, and now has a psychotic illness.

I've seen it so many times that people will, you know, be smoking marijuana, will get psychotic, maybe end up in the hospital, get on anti-psychotic medication, stop using marijuana, will feel better, maybe go back to school, go back to work, and then they think, "Okay, everything's fine now," and then they either stop their antipsychotics or start using marijuana or both.

And then they get back to a place where they're psychotic and delusional again.

And I think it can make people feel very hopeless when they realize that this is a state they may have to live in forever.

- And people at risk for psychosis, generally, are people who have had family members with schizophrenia or other psychotic disturbances or young people who are beginning to show at risk for psychosis behavior.

Their grades go down, they become more introverted, they spend less time with friends, they spend less time taking care of themselves, perhaps they become disheveled, but they're not yet experiencing hallucinations or delusions.

We know that those kids, particularly those with a family history of schizophrenia, are particularly at risk for the development of schizophrenia when exposed to high-potency cannabis.

(upbeat rock music) - He was always a teacher to me, everywhere I went.

It's, like, in skateboarding and hockey and life in general, just being a good person.

That was a big thing to John, was just living life to the fullest, going big, teaching, just, love and respect.

- I'm not gonna die.

I have confidence.

- [Friend] You guys make me so nervous.

- And then Terry believes that JT probably started using cannabis in high school, even though he played sports.

I really didn't look for it, but I think sometimes I could smell it.

I would say we noticed more extreme changes in him, in his personality, his hygiene, his attitude of how he treated us.

It probably took about three years to see.

We were, like, at a loss.

We didn't really know what was going on with him.

- I happened to glance, walk by his car, and I glanced in the passenger side, and I saw a gun.

Just, it was kind of a breaking point in our relationship because he was just doing so much crazy and wild things, you know?

And I ended up taking the gun, and he didn't like that.

- They can also have internal stimulation, like hallucinations, particularly auditory hallucinations.

They can hear voices, sometimes multiple voices, which they usually can't control very well, and these can be very distressing.

- He wrote something one time about the figment of his imagination versus reality.

He didn't know where the line was sometimes.

And that illness of schizophrenia even invaded his dreams.

I mean, he wrote about some of his dreams sometimes of being trapped onto ice and not being able to get out, and he was always afraid of being trapped in hell.

He said, "Mom, what if I get trapped in hell and the doors close forever and I can never get out?"

(solemn music) I don't know how to answer that.

- You'd talk to him, and he just wouldn't be himself.

He would be really, like, far away, almost.

I mean, I knew he was in some type of pain, but I didn't think it was so, so bad.

It just rapidly got worse.

And he didn't really talk about it either.

You know, he didn't really ask for help.

It wasn't in his nature, so - No 18-year-old wants to be labeled as being schizophrenic.

No family wants to hear that their 18-year-old has developed schizophrenia.

There isn't a lot known in the public about schizophrenia, and what is known about it is usually very negative, and so there's clearly a stigma about the diagnosis.

- And it probably took a good year before we really did something about it.

And what happened was that was his first attempt to take his life.

I was on my way to work that night, and Suzan called me, and she's, like, hysterical.

And you know, so, I'm like, you know, "You need to get him in the car and bring him to the hospital, and we've gotta get him evaluated."

(solemn music) I had come home from work, and it was, like, one of the coldest days of the winter so far.

I mean, it was, like, really, super cold.

And he was going outside.

He kinda looked at me like, you know, I could just tell something was up, but, you know, I didn't quite know what was going on.

You know, I could tell something was on his mind.

- I had gotten out of work at 6:00.

My husband called me on the way home from work, he was frantic.

He said, "Suzan, it's freezing cold weather out," it was, like, below-zero windchill.

And he said, "I do not know where JT is."

He goes, "The last time I saw him, he was going out the door."

And he said, "Do you have any idea where he might be?"

I said, "No, I don't."

But I said, "I think you might wanna check the sand pit.

That's the only thing I can think of," because he loved to go to the sand pit down at Otter Pond.

- So I got a flashlight and some boots on and, you know, and went over there for about 45 minutes screaming in the dark, looking for him.

And, you know, I couldn't find him.

- Well, I get a text from somebody that said, "Did you know John Norton?"

And I said, "What do you mean did know?"

And, like, right then and there, like, (solemn music) my heart dropped.

- I ran upstairs, (solemn music) and I opened his bedroom door, and I saw a big pool of blood, and I found my son.

(solemn music) I don't remember a lot after that.

I don't remember if I even could form a sentence, I really don't.

I would wanna tell parents about cannabis that they need to really take a hard look at their kids because out of love, because if your kids are smoking pot and you think it's okay, you need to think about the fact that it's a lot stronger than it was.

(plaintive music) - [David] In 2017, the US National Academy of Medicine examined 30 years of cannabis research and concluded that the magnitude of the association between marijuana and psychosis is moderate to large and appears to be dependent on the dose or potency.

In June of 2022, Mainebiz featured an article on cannabis in Maine.

Reporting on 2021 sales, they stated that marijuana sales were approaching three quarters of a billion dollars, which far exceeds Maine's lobster industry.

And as reported in Mainebiz, marijuana in Maine is just getting started.

- [Presenter] Anyone in this room that can fog a mirror is eligible for a medical card.

So it's a great, you know, it's a great way to get some discounted cannabis, if you don't mind that it hasn't been tested and you're not really sure where it's from.

- There's this kind of 80/20 principle that applies to a lot of substances, where you got 80% of the consumption by 20% of the consumers, which, again, is your heavy daily users.

So, I mean, frankly, what that means is that the profits are coming from the people that are most likely to develop an addiction.

- I think that, you know, somebody who's experiencing trauma or is going through struggles in life are seeing these, you know, are seeing these businesses open, and they're looking at them as a source of help.

And they're looking at them, they're going there, you know, in hopes that this is going to, you know, make them feel better.

But in the end, it doesn't.

- I mean, the marijuana and alcohol industry, the tobacco industry, they're out to make money.

They're not out to help anyone.

They're really out to just, it's just about profit.

- The other thing is, though, when we talk about the revenues, we're only looking at one side of the ledger, and there's another side of the ledger, which are the costs to the state.

So when we look at, example of alcohol and tobacco, we know there's good studies on this, that for every dollar we collect in tax revenues, we're spending $10 fixing the problems it causes, whether it's treatment, healthcare costs, law enforcement, worker productivity.

- [Presenter] A lot of people who believe that cannabis, in one way or another, is gonna save the world.

(solemn music) - Any business that benefits from addiction uses the model that was developed by Big Tobacco nearly 60 years ago.

It has three parts.

Step one is to make the product seem safe and maybe even medicinal.

Big Tobacco had its doctors paid to endorse cigarettes.

Now even modified language to change popular opinion.

What used to be called dealing drugs is now called caregiving.

Maine uses the new language when we identify over 3,000 medical marijuana caregivers on Maine's cannabis policy website.

Step two is to make the product more addictive.

Big Tobacco doubled the nicotine content and redesigned cigarettes to deliver more nicotine to the lungs.

Marijuana has drastically increased the THC content of the flower and isolated and distilled the THC molecule so it can be delivered with stronger potency.

(solemn music) Step three is to market to kids and young adults who are known to be uniquely vulnerable to addiction, because developing brains are actively building new neural networks and are especially prone to attach with chemicals that make us high.

All addiction-related businesses use this model.

because without addiction, there is no sustainable business.

The market potential for illegal, highly addictive drug is massive.

And all the industries that perfected the addiction business model, tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals, are all heavily invested in marijuana today.

We know that the marijuana industry can be very effective with their marketing campaigns.

To counteract that, we will need an equally effective program of education in our schools.

- And I really, really wish that parents, policymakers, and all of us would be attuned to, well, who is at risk for psychosis, and how might we protect them from the deleterious effects of cannabis?

- Well, and so it really hurts me, it bothers me, like, painfully to see people do things that are damaging to them, especially when there's not the restrictions in place to help them.

And they don't know what they're doing, that they think that it's things are safe.

And so it's just really painful to watch people destroy their lives.

Not only destroy their lives, but to destroy their parents' lives, their children's lives, you know, destroy their relationships.

I mean, you know, not just marijuana, but I've seen addiction just destroy people's lives.

And so it's really hard to watch.

- When I'm driving around through town and I see cannabis shops on every corner, I see weed symbols, marijuana signs, I hear my son saying, "Oh, so and so turned 18, gonna go get his medic card now."

I can't understand how this dangerous thing that is now stronger than anything I had ever seen when I was in high school is ever going to slow down.

I see more and more younger, younger kids that are gonna be introduced to it, just like my son was by their friends' older siblings, because these high schoolers don't understand.

I believe they think they're cool to introduce it to the junior high kids.

- There's a lot that we can get discouraged about and be like, "There's no way out of this, how can we help?"

But I think there is a lot of hope, and I think a foundation of education is the way to go.

We've seen it work in lots of different fields when it came to public outreach on seat belts, and most people wear helmets when they ski now.

And when we look at the main integrated youth health survey results, the most recent ones, there was one question about marijuana that states, how harmful do you feel it is to use marijuana one or two times a week?

And about 2/3 of our Maine students, about 66% said not very harmful or no harm at all.

So with that in mind, this last couple semesters that I've been using the "Voices of Hope" documentary implemented with my substance use curriculum, I asked my students, I did a little pretest beforehand saying, you know, how harmful do you think?

And my results were similar in the beginning.

And then after we completed the substance use unit, I surveyed them, you know, probably a month or two later, and only about 5% of my students said they felt that there was little or no harm.

So over 90% realized, okay, there is some harm in using.

So I think it's not difficult to learn this, it's just that we need to put it out there, even if we had an 18th of the budget that our big marijuana manufacturers are receiving, or just getting the word out there.

Like, marijuana in high concentrations is known to be dangerous.

- [David] Next week, we will continue with marijuana with Mary Record, a Scarborough High School health teacher, as she conducts a forum with local high school students who express their concerns about marijuana use.

- Cocaine comes from a plant, heroin comes from a plant, alcohol comes from wheat and barley and hops.

Like, everything comes from a plant, and plants aren't necessarily always great for us.

- We will also meet Laura Stack, a Colorado woman whose son committed suicide after developing THC-induced psychosis.

- I said to myself, "Oh, it's just marijuana.

I used it.

I'm okay, right?

It didn't bother anybody."

But my frame of reference was from the '80s.

Thank God it's just weed, and I was so wrong.

- [David] And we'll explore how research is linking marijuana to violence.

- And I also started to experience these daydreams of committing violent acts.

And then later, the thoughts were escalating, I thought about stabbing people, and then eventually shooting people with a gun.

- [David] And also... - You may not know this, but marijuana is the most prevalent substance found in completed teen suicide in Colorado now.

- I am Brittany Reichmann.

If you've watched the series, you've probably heard some of my story in more detail than I have time to give you all today, but I am a person in long-term recovery.

May 20th, so almost two months ago, I stood on my front porch holding my 11-month-old son on my waist, and my husband walked up the driveway with two hanging plants.

And that's how we celebrated my five years sober.

(audience applauds) And I thought to myself, "Wow, this is really it."

But five years ago, on May 20th, I entered my sixth treatment center.

I was 27 years old.

And at that point, I had spent my 22nd through my 27th birthday either in prison, in treatment, or in sober living.

- And storytelling at its basic form is about emotional connection.

It's about relating to the story being told.

It's about being curious and developing compassion for your fellow human being.

And when that happens, your mind just expands, and you can become a completely different person.

And I know that happened to me when I started working on the documentary and watching all these clips and meeting all these different people.

- So this last school year in person again, I was able to finally incorporate my current substance abuse prevention unit with the clips from "Voices of Hope", and it just made such a powerful impact, it was great.

And you know, coming from Scarborough, and the two people that I'm gonna highlight today, you know, Brittany's from Windham and Chris is from Scarborough.

So you know, of course, my students were just like, "Oh, you know, this is so cool."

So as an educator, I just wanted to make a couple points.

Like, our series, "Voices of Hope", gives, like, that real, relevant, and raw personal stories that connects us, anybody who watches it, not just students, but any of you.

I'm sure some of you hopefully have seen it on MPBN, that, like, these are people in our community, which gives us that compassion and that connection to, like, wow, this can literally happen to anyone.

So I think our hope lies within education.

Education is the piece that can empower our youth to make the decisions for themselves.

And once they can make decisions for themselves, that's where we'll see some real progress.

(gentle music)