A Texas doctor who researches the effects of marijuana is sounding the alarm about culture's mainstreaming of the drug, warning its effects are anything but benign. Dr. Raymond Wiggins, an oral surgeon and author of the book "Weeding Out the Lies About Marijuana," told CBN Digital weed is a drug that can have profound psychological and physical effects on the body.
"If you want to talk about psychosis, for those who start using marijuana at a young age and who use it on a regular basis, there's a two and a half times risk of psychosis," Wiggins said. "One study ... actually showed a six times risk for those who used it regularly." He said research also shows young people who use the drug before age 18 are also at increased risk of psychosis, though the dangers don't stop there.
"If you're talking about depression and suicide, depression is greatly increased if you start smoking ... it as a teenager," Wiggins said. "And then if you look at the statistics for depression, up until the age of 30, those who smoked it as a teenager are 37% more likely to be depressed in their young adult years, and even later on in life."
The doctor also mentioned suicide as yet another factor worthy of exploring, stating research shows young people who use the drug are "50% more likely to think about suicide" and are "three and a half to seven times more likely to attempt suicide." Bipolar disorder is yet another issue Wiggins raised, with the doctor highlighting a recent study he said found a causal relationship between bipolar disorder and marijuana.
As for Wiggins own motivation for exploring marijuana use and addiction, the doctor pointed to experiences in his own family as well as patterns he's seen among his patients for igniting his passion to further explore the impact weed has on the masses. "I have three close relatives who were all heavy marijuana users and they're all dead today," he said. "I believe that they would be alive if it wasn't for marijuana."
To the newsmakers podcast, I'm Billie Hollowell, and this is a show where we go behind the headlines every day to bring you an interview with a pastor, entertainer, politician, or other notable news figure. And this is a show, again, it's daily, but it's based on our weekly TV show, which is also called Newsmakers. You can watch it on the CBN News channel and also on our YouTube page. And on this show, every day, we dive deep. It's a little more longer form with one of the people who you will often see on our Newsmaker show or across the CBN News platforms. On today's newsmakers, the dangers of marijuana will be sitting down here with a Texas doctor who researches the effects of the drug and is sounding the alarm on culture's mainstreaming of marijuana, warning of its effects, and all it could do to the human mind, body, and soul. And no further ado, here is Dr. Raymond Wiggins, an oral surgeon and author of the book Weeding Out the Lies About Marijuana to Discuss This Important Issue Here on Newsmakers. Dr. I want to first start by asking you an important question. You have done quite a bit of research. You are an expert on this issue of marijuana, which is becoming a bigger and bigger cultural issue as we speak in this country right now. But what was it that first led you into investigating this issue? Well, I have three close relatives who were all heavy marijuana users, and they're all dead today. And I believe that they would be alive if it wasn't for marijuana. One just died a couple of years ago, one of my cousins, and he died of a sudden heart attack. And he had just stopped. He had just come back to the Lord at that point, and he had just stopped using marijuana. But it had done significant damage to his heart. Then I have another young man who's a very close personal relative who was raised in church, and he went off to college, got in with a group of guys that were smoking marijuana. And he thought, "Hey, these guys are doing okay, so why not do it?" And he did it. And then after a few times, he wound up developing psychosis and paranoid delusions. He actually thought people were trying to kill him. And he wound up in a psychiatric hospital, wasn't able to ever return to school. So that's the personal side. And then if you look at the professional side, I see that my patients have a lot more anxiety whenever they're smoking marijuana. Almost everyone of them that checks the box that says marijuana, they also check anxiety. And it's always, it's been interesting to me that people would push it as an anti-anxiety drug when studies actually show that it increases anxiety if you look at the best studies. And then also people who are under anesthesia, they take three times more propofol. I do lots of inesthetics, outpatient inesthetics every day, and it takes three times more propofol. And it's not just me saying that it's everyone that's in my profession, including the American society of anesthesiologists, they say that it takes three times more anesthesia to keep these patients appropriately sedated. So if you look at all those things, plus the fact that it takes more post-operative pain medication to keep them comfortable, when I started looking at all those things, I saw the devastating effects in my patients, my family, and my friends, I began investigating them and what I found really shocked me. Yeah, I want to talk about you brought up a number of considerations. There's the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. And I want to talk about each of those. But one of the things, and you even heard it in some of the personal stories, and I appreciate you sharing those that you just shared, it's this idea culturally, and this has always been there, but I think it's expanded in recent years, that marijuana is no big deal. This is a drug that is not heroin, and this is sort of the cultural mantra on it. It's safe, it's no big deal, and that's not quite what you've discovered in your research. And one of the big things too, there isn't a lot of research. I mean, the research that's out there, I think we're going to see more of it coming now. It's not very encouraging, but let's start with the mental health aspects of this, because this is a drug that medicinally is being pushed to help treat mental health issues, right? Is it not? There are many people that are pushing it for that. I think most of the best neurologists and psychiatrists are not pushing marijuana as a drug that treats psychosis. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association says that it's not a drug that should be used for that. There are some doctors who will use it for that, but it's really a drug that's actually going to cause a lot more problems. If you want to talk about psychosis, for those who start using marijuana at a young age and who use it on a regular basis, there's a two and a half times risk of psychosis. And in fact, if you look at one study, it actually showed a six times risk for those who used it regularly. And that study actually showed a two and a half to three times risk for those who had used it at all before the age of 18. If you're talking about depression and suicide, depression is greatly increased. If you start smoking it young again, if you smoke it as a teenager, and then if you look at the statistics for depression up until the age of 30, those who smoked it as a teenager are 37% more likely to be depressed in their young adult years and even later on in life. Those who have cannabis use disorder, which is actual addiction to marijuana, are two times more likely to be depressed. And then that leads to suicide, thinking about suicide and suicide attempts. Young people who use marijuana are 50% more likely to think about suicide, but they're three and a half to seven times more likely to attempt suicide. So there's something about marijuana that makes it much easier for a person to attempt suicide. And unfortunately, the number one drug that's found in toxicology screens of young people who have committed suicide is marijuana, then you can talk about bipolar disorder. There's a huge study that actually just came out. It came out in May and it followed over six and a half million people. And it was the first study to actually show a causal relationship between bipolar disorder and marijuana. Marijuana actually causes bipolar disorder and the statistics are just incredible on that in this study. It shows a three times risk of bipolar disorder in men and two and a half times in women for those with cannabis use disorder and anyone who uses marijuana will have an increased risk of bipolar disorder according to this study. Why do you think, you go through, we look at schizophrenia, we look at suicide, we look at bipolar disorder, all of these things that we're seeing come out in this research, why do you think it's as though people are looking at all of that, looking away and forging on towards legalization, pushing it, you know, repeating that this is not dangerous, it's as though they want to pretend this data isn't there. Why do you think there's such a push to legalize this, really, I mean, almost half the, over about half the country now, it's legal recreationally and then you throw in the medicinal, why? Well, I think there's several reasons. Number one, there's big money behind this. It's somewhere between 100 to $130 billion a year industry and if you look at the referendums, if you look at the money that's going towards candidates, there's a lot of money that's going that direction and big marijuana is following the same path that Big Tobacco did over half a century ago and they're also making it look like marijuana is really benign drug, but it's really not. They're pushing the potency too, they keep pushing the potency levels. If you look back at Woodstock, in 1969, most marijuana was one to 2% THC, THC is the component of marijuana that causes the high. The really good stuff was 3%. If you fast forward to 1995, that was about four times that today, it's 22%. Well, the higher potency, marijuana's are four times more likely to make you addicted, so they're pushing the idea that it's not a dangerous drug that it's a benign drug, yet they're pushing the potency through genetic manipulation. They all can say it's not addictive. This has been a repeated line that marijuana is not addictive, but, again, as you're stating, that is not accurate or the case. That's not accurate at all. It's somewhere between four to eight times more addictive whenever you get into the high potency, marijuana, and that's anything over 10%. Well, today, the average is 22%, and there's some strains that are pushing 45% these days. We talked about, obviously, the physical, the mental. We know that this is something that can be very damaging to people socially and their lives, their trajectory of people's lives, and yet this is being dismissed. I think spiritually, this is a place where there are some Christians who are looking and saying, "Okay, well, people can go out and drink alcohol. You can have a drink of wine," and of course, there are different views about this within the church, but you could drink wine without getting drunk. You could have a beer without getting drunk. Marijuana, there are questions, "Well, can you smoke marijuana without being inebriated in some way?" What would you say to a Christian who is struggling with that question and trying to figure out, "Hey, is this a drug that biblically were morally okay to partake in?" Yeah, the problem with marijuana and the difference between marijuana, one of the differences, there's several differences, but the biggest difference is that, as you said, you can drink a little bit of alcohol and not be inebriated. You can still be sober, but if you smoke marijuana after one hit, within somewhere between 30 seconds to a couple of minutes, there is no way that you will be sober any longer, and the Bible warns against that, the Bible gives many reasons that people shouldn't indulge in marijuana, first of all, the medical reasons that we talked about. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and God wants us to take care of that temple. Marijuana leads to laziness. It leads users to be slaves to sin because of the addiction issues. God wants us to rely on Him for our peace and joy, and we're not doing that whenever we're using the substance, and then the biggest one is that Christians are called to be sober at all times, and the Bible actually gives nine reasons that we're supposed to be sober, including that not being sober leads to poor judgment. It leads to indulgence and sin. It leads to loss of spiritual insight and attacks of the enemy. Those are all reasons, plus many more that the Bible gives for us to be sober, and with marijuana again, you just can't stay sober and use marijuana. So where do we go from here? What is your prediction? Because right now, I believe it's 23 states in the District of Columbia, and I'm sure we're going to see more coming. What do you think the future of this issue holds in terms of where we're headed legally? Well, the Biden administration, just within the past few weeks, has said that they want to take this from being a Schedule I drug to being a Schedule III drug. Schedule I means that there's a hyperpensity for abuse and addiction, and that there's no recognized medical use. Schedule III, which is where they're trying to take this, is something that can be used. But almost every drug that has gone this direction has had some real scientific evidence behind it. Fortunately, this is more based on popular opinion, and they think they're going to get votes out of it, in my opinion. And so long story short, it looks like it may be headed towards national legalization. We'll see where that heads. I'm praying that that doesn't happen because of all the detrimental effects of marijuana, but that's at least right now that looks like where it may be headed. And my final question for you, and looking at all of this, you have resources, you have a website. There's also a book Weeding out the Lies About Marijuana. Where can people go if they're interested after watching this or hearing this to get more information from you and your research? Well you can go to DrWiggins.com. That's d-r-w-i-g-g-i-n-s.com, and it has a lot of links there for resources that you can use, including my book. My book is not coming out until January, and so if you'll sign up for the connection email list there, then I will let you know exactly when the book comes out, and you'll want to read that book. There's so much evidence in there, both from the physical side, the mental health issues, and the spiritual side that will help Christians. Well I appreciate you taking the time, coming out and talking with us, this is an important issue, and everybody make sure you head over there, sign up, so you can get the info on the book. So when it comes out, you can grab copies of it. I appreciate your time today. I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. That's all for today's Newsmakers podcast. Be sure to tune in for the next episode of the show. And also head over to the CBN News YouTube channel and the CBN News channel to watch Newsmakers every week. We'll see you soon. [BLANK_AUDIO]
