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He started using delta-8 THC in February 2022, during his final semester at the University of Pittsburgh. A fraternity brother who worked at a delta-8 store offered him a sample. Marcus had never used marijuana before. He had mild anxiety and\u00a0ADHD, and the edible made him feel like \u201cnothing else mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n
He switched to\u00a0vape pens. Each hit lasted only 15 to 30 minutes, roughly half the duration of regular THC, which meant Marcus kept hitting the pen to stay high. By summer, he was taking 60 to 90 hits a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would do anything to get that high,\u201d Marcus said.<\/p>\n
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He\u00a0vaped in airport bathrooms before flights. He vaped in Amtrak restrooms on the train from Washington, D.C., back to Long Island. He bought delta-8 from stores in New York that sold it under the counter even after the state moved to restrict it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a mouse trying to find cheese,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will sniff the cheese in any way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tried quitting three times on his own and failed. Then came a psychosis episode: grandiose delusions that sent his mother racing to find him a rehab bed in Suffolk County. At the time, cannabis-induced psychosis was not a term the clinical team used.<\/p>\n
After rehab, Marcus relapsed 12 more times. He tried Narcotics Anonymous on Long Island but did not feel he belonged in that setting. The nearest Marijuana Anonymous meeting was roughly an hour away, in Long Island City. He could not get there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s easy if you\u2019re in a city,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re in a suburb, it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
System not built for cannabis<\/p>\n
Marcus\u2019s experience reflects a broader pattern that officials and clinicians across New York described in interviews: a treatment infrastructure that was not designed for cannabis addiction.<\/p>\n
Dr.\u00a0Chinazo Cunningham, commissioner of the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports, said the 50% decline in cannabis-related treatment admissions has multiple causes. Fewer people are entering treatment through the criminal justice system, she said, after changes in enforcement and sentencing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMaybe people don\u2019t think that cannabis can cause a problem, or they don\u2019t think that they have a problem, they don\u2019t think that they need treatment,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Molly Boyd-Smith, an emergency medicine physician and toxicologist at Albany Medical Center, said there are simply not enough treatment resources for cannabis, especially for younger patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe patients who end up getting kind of the more intensive services are the patients who are addicted to cocaine or heroin or\u00a0fentanyl,\u201d Boyd-Smith said. \u201cThose are the patients that there\u2019s money being put into services for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renny, from Mount Sinai, said the emergency department represents a critical missed opportunity. Patients walk in during a moment of crisis, she said, and then walk out with no clear path to treatment.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe emergency department visit is really an opportunity for us to reach patients that might not seek primary care, or they may not have a connection to health care,\u201d\u00a0Renny said.<\/p>\n
She is currently conducting a study to develop and test an emergency department intervention for youth with high-risk substance use, focused on connecting them to ongoing care.<\/p>\n
For\u00a0opioid overdoses, that linkage infrastructure already exists: patients receive medication, counseling referrals and follow-up contacts. Renny said similar programs could be developed for cannabis.<\/p>\n
‘Not well trained’<\/p>\n
Dr. Matthew\u00a0Holm, a pediatrician and addiction medicine specialist who treats patients\u00a0in the Bronx, said most pediatricians are poorly prepared to address substance use of any kind.<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou have\u00a0a bunch of pediatricians that have poor education regarding substance use in general, about all drugs, that are not well trained, and so thus they\u2019re not well equipped.\u201d Holm said.\u00a0\u201cI think we need to be focused and grounded in things like harm reduction, in community engagement and community knowledge. There are heroes here that are doing this work under the radar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cunningham, commissioner of OASAS and a physician,\u00a0said she received one hour of training on addiction in four years of medical school. Her agency does not have the authority to mandate what is taught in medical schools or residency programs, or to tell pediatricians how to practice in their offices.<\/p>\n
Dr. Gregory Bunt, a psychiatrist in Rockland County, said cannabis use disorder \u201cis treatable, but it\u2019s not treatable with a quick and easy solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you get addicted to a substance, it\u2019s not so easy to just discontinue,\u201d Bunt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Withdrawal symptoms, which can include insomnia, anxiety and agitation, are common and can be managed with medication, Bunt said. But relapse is a persistent risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelapse is a risk, and they need to know what steps they need to take to prevent relapse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Marcus learned that the hard way. After leaving rehab, he relapsed 12 times over several months. Each time, the cycle was the same: he bought a disposable\u00a0vape pen, took one hit, threw it away, and then came back days later for another.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne hit, threw it away in the trash,\u201d he said. \u201cThree weeks later, same thing. Two weeks later. One week later.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Meetings on a map<\/p>\n
What finally worked for Marcus was Marijuana Anonymous, a 12-step program modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous. But he did not find it in New York, where there are many locations that host meetings\u00a0near New York City, but only a few across upstate New York.<\/p>\n
He found Marijuana Anonymous after moving to Washington, D.C., where meetings were a 25-minute train ride away. The first time he walked in, he was high. He told the group he was scared and wanted to quit. They clapped and hugged him.<\/p>\n
Cunningham said her state agency funds treatment and prevention providers across the state, including in rural counties.<\/p>\n
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OASAS is planning a statewide survey to understand young people\u2019s perceptions of cannabis, their attitudes, and their usage patterns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make sure that we have the data so that can be used to guide our work,\u201d Cunningham said. The effort is especially urgent, she added, because the federal government has been cutting expenditures in national surveys, including ones tracking substance use among young people.<\/p>\n
Dr. June Chin, chief medical officer at the state Office of Cannabis Management, said the agency has met with officials from more than two dozen school districts since last July, to discuss what educators are seeing and how to talk to students and families about cannabis.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people today are growing up in a world where cannabis is legal and widely accessible,\u201d Chin said. \u201cI think that we should focus on upstream.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The agency is also working with Gov. Kathy Hochul on a Center of Excellence for cannabis care and health equity aimed at preparing clinicians for a world where cannabis is part of patient care.<\/p>\n
Five more years<\/p>\n
Marcus will mark three years of sobriety in late July. He lives in the Washington, D.C.,\u00a0area now, works as a political campaign manager, and plays in four dodgeball leagues to stay busy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think I want to go to meetings every single day?\u201d he said. \u201cI love them, don\u2019t get me wrong, but it takes a lot of time and effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
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He recently pulled up the Marijuana Anonymous website and looked at the meeting map. There are now two meetings on Long Island that did not exist in 2022, one in Salisbury and one near Levittown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the groups\u00a0meets on Tuesday evenings. The other meets in Hicksville at 9:15 a.m. on Saturdays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a morning person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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His sobriety has not erased his worry. He read that people who heavily use marijuana can develop schizophrenia within eight to 10 years after they stop. He is three years in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll call you back in five years,\u201d he said, \u201cand I\u2019ll tell you if I get schizophrenia or not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Madeline Renny, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai, is researching how to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[2420,97,252,253,13478,6149,2005,3],"class_list":{"0":"post-566630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-government","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-latestnews","13":"tag-marijuana","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}