--- title: Colorado Warns of Marijuana Risk for Pregnant Women, Drivers and Youth description: A Colorado panel warned about the dangers of using marijuana during pregnancy, while driving and during adolescence and young adulthood. canonical: https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/ author: Michael Scherer article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-03T14:24:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:40:47.103Z article:section: Health og:title: Colorado Report Warns of Risks of Marijuana Use og:description: For pregnant women, drivers and the young. og:url: https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf4701571b6003c6/69877bf7f887dc4f85e89bf4/marijuana-plant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5057 og:image:height: 2845 og:image:alt: Medical Marijuana og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Colorado Report Warns of Risks of Marijuana Use twitter:description: For pregnant women, drivers and the young. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf4701571b6003c6/69877bf7f887dc4f85e89bf4/marijuana-plant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Colorado Warns About Marijuana Danger for Pregnant Women, Drivers and Youth > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids [Watch (HLS stream): Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6Ic4KUCK.m3u8) (16:16)  _Published 2014-10-21. The story of a family's illegal cross-country drive to transport marijuana oil for their epileptic 3-year-old daughter. A look inside the quasi-legal, science free world of medical marijuana for children from TIME's Red Border Films_ by [Michael Scherer](https://time.com/author/michael-scherer/) ## Michael Scherer Feb 3, 2015 2:24 PM UTC  Medical Marijuana Medical Marijuana Colin Brynn—Getty Images by [Michael Scherer](https://time.com/author/michael-scherer/) ## Michael Scherer Feb 3, 2015 2:24 PM UTC A Colorado state panel set up to review the health effects of marijuana warned citizens Monday about the dangers of using the drug during pregnancy, while driving and during adolescence and young adulthood. The report, which was commissioned by the state legislature to clarify sometimes contradictory health information about marijuana, also found preliminary evidence to suggest that legalization in the state had resulted in increased hospitalizations, emergency room visits and poison center calls possibly related to marijuana. “The committee’s work represents one of the first and most comprehensive reviews to assess the strength of credible scientific literature available today regarding marijuana use,” said Dr. Larry Wolk, the executive director and chief medical officer at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. For years, a lack of scientific research and distrust of the federal government’s historic rhetoric on marijuana led to conflicting ideas about the drug’s negative health effects among users. In the 1930s, Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics, warned Americans that the drug increased criminality. “Some people will fly into a delirious rage, and they are temporarily irresponsible and may commit violent crimes,” he said in congressional hearing. “Other people will laugh uncontrollably. It is impossible to say what the effect will be on any individual.” ### Go Inside the Harvest of Colorado's Most Controversial Marijuana Strain  Charlotte's Web grows on the Stanley brother's farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014\. The Stanley Brothers have developed a popular strain of cannabis that has been found to be helpful in reducing seizures in some children. Charlotte's Web is high in a compound called cannabidiol (CBD) and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) the compound that causes a high. Matt Nager for TIME  Charlotte's Web grows on the Stanley brother's farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  From left: Zachary Sobol, Michael Atchley, and Jared Stanley walk to the farm to prepare for harvest of Charlotte's Web near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Rows of Charlotte's Web await harvest at the Stanley brother's farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Jared Stanley helps in the harvest of Charlotte's Web on the Stanley brother's farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Colin Sparks searches for seeds during the harvest of Charlotte's Web on the Stanley brother's Charlotte's Web farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Discarded leaves of Charlotte's Web at a farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Tim Knight helps in the harvest of Charlotte's Web on the Stanley brother's farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Rows of Charlotte's Web await travel to a drying facility after being harvested on a farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Zachary Sobol catches a ride on a trailer to the Stanley brother's farm during harvest of Charlotte's Web near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Rows of Charlotte's Web await travel to a drying facility after being harvested from a farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  One of the Stanley brother's greenhouses growing cannabis near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Zachary Sobol hangs rows of Charlotte's Web to dry after harvest in Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Penn Mattison, left, and Zachary Sobol, right, hang rows of Charlotte's Web to dry after being harvested from a farm near Wray, Colo. on Sept. 22, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  The Stanley brothers' new company laboratory in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  A petri dish full of cannabis explants await transfer and transplanting at the Stanley brothers' lab in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Molecular plant biologist and lab manager Bear Reel awaits the cooling of agar to help induce rooting of transplanted cannabis plants at the Stanley brothers' company laboratory in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  The lab notebook of molecular plant biologist and lab manager Bear Reel at the Stanley brothers' company laboratory in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  A flask of agar cools before explants of hemp are transplanted to help induce rooting and new growth at the Stanley brothers' company laboratory in in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME  Tissue cutter technician Meg Regan holds a vial of explants before sanitizing and transplanting at the Stanley brothers' laboratory in Boulder, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2014. Matt Nager for TIME Today the scientific literature has advanced beyond such outlandish claims, though it is far from complete. Violent criminal behavior is not considered an expected result of marijuana use, and there are inconclusive findings on the permanent effects of marijuana use among adult users. Scientists have repeatedly found short-term memory effects lasting up to a week after heavy adult use. While marijuana has many of the same carcinogenic chemicals as tobacco, the lung cancer risk of the drug has not yet been conclusively identified. For specific populations, however, marijuana use can have clear negative impacts, the Retail Marijuana Public Advisory Committee found in the review of scientific literature. The rate of motor vehicle crashes, for instance, doubled with recent use of marijuana. The committee also found that maternal use during pregnancy was associated with negative effects on exposed offspring, “including decreased academic ability, cognitive function and attention.” Some effects of the effects may not appear until adolescence. Most of the committee’s warnings were focused on teens and young adults. Youth marijuana use is associated with higher future risk of using other drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, opioids, methamphetamine and cocaine. Use by teens is also associated with decreased school performance and memory impairments that last as long as 28 days after use. There is also a demonstrated correlation between early and heavy marijuana use and the development of psychotic symptoms and disorders like schizophrenia in adulthood among certain populations. Adult use in Colorado is higher than the rest of the country, according to two surveys included in the report. In one survey, 3% of adults reported increased use of marijuana since retail legalization. The data on marijuana use rates among youth are contradictory—one 2013 survey found lower high school use than the national average, while another from 2012 and 2013 found higher middle school use than the rest of the country. Medical marijuana has been allowed in Colorado since 2000, and recreational marijuana was legalized in 2014\. The full 188-page report can be found [here](https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/DC%5FMJ-Monitoring-Health-Concerns-Related-to-Marijuana-in-CO-2014.pdf). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/"},"headline":"Colorado Warns About Marijuana Danger for Pregnant Women, Drivers and Youth","datePublished":"2015-02-03T14:24:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:40:47.103Z","description":"A state panel finishes a comprehensive review of the published science on pot","url":"https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/","keywords":["Marijuana","Colorado","health","state"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf4701571b6003c6/69877bf7f887dc4f85e89bf4/marijuana-plant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michael Scherer","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/michael-scherer/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf4701571b6003c6/69877bf7f887dc4f85e89bf4/marijuana-plant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Medical Marijuana","caption":"Medical Marijuana","creditText":"Colin Brynn—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/marijuana/","name":"Marijuana"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3693530/marijuana-health-colorado-pregnant/","name":"Colorado Warns About Marijuana Danger for Pregnant Women, Drivers and Youth"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids","description":"The story of a family's illegal cross-country drive to transport marijuana oil for their epileptic 3-year-old daughter. 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