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I have parent-anxiety. Specifically about pot.

All this talk about health benefits seems to gloss over the serious health risks for young people who use marijuana.

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We don’t need scare tactics. No hyperbole.

But something in cannabis is able to interfere with still-maturing brain neurons and people can’t afford to lose IQ points.

Edmonton psychiatrist Dr. Adam Abba-Aji has a 16-year-old son. He’s also an associate clinical professor at the University of Alberta and the lead psychiatrist for Edmonton’s new mental health clinic for youth, Access Open Minds.

He’s worried.

Many young patients wonder why they’ve come down with symptoms — anxiety, depression, panic attacks, schizophrenia — when others who smoke pot with them do not. It’s hard to know because there’s so much unknown, said Abba-Aji. He has only one simple way to explain it — “your brain was allergic.”

We don’t know for sure if legalization will increase the use of cannabis among those at risk — youth up to age 25. But it did in The Netherlands, the largest jurisdiction to allow it. Here, Health Canada promised to spend $100 million on education to warn young adults and others to go easy.