Dr. Thurstone discusses medical marijuana legislation in Colorado

On Monday night Megan Johnson, health promotion club, introduced Dr. Thurstone to a packed Memorial Union Sun Room. With a round of applause and some hoots and hollers Dr. Thurstone took the stage. “I don’t think we should have medical marijuana,” said Dr. Christian Thurstone, addiction and adolescent psychiatrist. “We should have put our resources into getting the [Investigational New Drug] exemption and going that route. I think the best we can hope for now if going back to a care giver model and rejecting legalizing it outright.” His PowerPoint entitled “A plea for Reefer Sanity” discussed statistics and changes in youth behavior that Dr. Thurstone has noticed while providing addiction and adolescent psychiatry services in Denver, CO.

“A lot of the problem in the discussion of the drug control policy… is this all or nothing thinking…it doesn’t need to be this way. There is a third way. This science based way,” Thurstone said. Dr. Thurstone quoted the National Survey of Drug Use and Health saying that 60 percent of new users of marijuana every year are under the age of 18. He also pointed out that 17 percent of those new users go on to become addicts. “Would I say that the demographic of having college students in Denver, Boulder helps drive how much marijuana and marijuana dispensaries there are? I would say absolutely,” Dr. Thurstone said. “If I were a business man I would absolutely have my medical marijuana dispensary near high schools, community colleges, universities. 60 percent of new users are under the age of 18.

If you move that up to early 20s, almost all new users are in their early 20s or less.” Dr. Thurstone briefly began to describe the medical marijuana law in Colorado. “A physician makes a recommendation for marijuana and then that form is submitted to the state and you get a 'red card' where you can buy marijuana, grow marijuana, or have someone grow it for you,” Dr. Thurstone said. Dr. Thurstone noted that he believes the earlier care giver model that was originally in place was more effective in his opinion. “If you rely on the first eight years of our medical marijuana law in Colorado, we had a care giver model,” Dr. Thurstone said.

“You had to grow it yourself or you could designate a care giver to grow six plants for you. No commercial distribution of marijuana. The Iowa proposals would have the dispensaries model." Another alternative that Dr. Thurstone mentioned is Sativex. Sativex is a drug that is currently available in Canada and parts of Europe that contains some of the active ingredients in marijuana but can be controlled more easily because it is not smoked, but sprayed up the nose. “It’s an oral spray of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the ingredients in marijuana, and cannabinol, another ingredient in marijuana, that makes the marijuana less addictive, less harsh than straight pure THC," Dr. Thurstone said.

"I think we should push for that to be available on an exception basis before it has its final FDA approval … That gives states a medicine that they can use and protects kids and public safety." Hearing about Sativex also piqued the interest of some attendees at the lecture. "Something I was very excited to hear about was a mouth spray containing THC and cannabinoids which could potentially be utilized as a low-risk alternative to smoked marijuana … The introduction of such a product could really change the whole conversation,” said Kaci McCleary, senior in psychology.