The advisory warns of the consequences when pregnant women use marijuana, which include damage to fetal brain development and lower birth weights.
“Alarmingly, many retail dispensaries recommend marijuana to pregnant women for morning sickness,” the advisory says.
“It is important to advise all adolescents and young women that if they become pregnant, marijuana should not be used during pregnancy,” the American Academy of Pediatrics states, according to the advisory.
In 2017, 9.2 million youths between the ages of 12 and 25 had reported marijuana use in the past month, the advisory reports. It drew a connection between states legalizing the drug and a decline in high school students’ perception of harm from marijuana.
The advisory notes that “frequent marijuana use during adolescence is associated with changes in the areas of the brain involved in attention, memory, decision-making, and motivation.”
“Chronic use is also linked to declines in IQ [and] school performance that jeopardizes professional and social achievements, and life satisfaction. Regular use of marijuana in adolescence is linked to rates of school absence and drop out, as well as suicide attempts.”
Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press conference announcing the report, “The advisory, like all of our work on substance abuse, is grounded in the best science we have.
“We need to be clear: Some state’s laws on marijuana may have changed, but the science has not, and federal law has not.”
The Epoch Times
According to Wikipedia, the Epoch Times media chain was founded in 2000 by John Tang and a group of Chinese Americans associated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Though the newspaper has been known for general interest topics with a focus on news about China and its human rights issues, it is becoming known for its support of U.S. President Donald Trump and favorable coverage of right-wing politicians in Europe; a 2019 report showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign itself. The group’s news sites and YouTube channels are known for spreading conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccination propaganda.
The Epoch Times has print editions in English, Chinese, and six other languages. Fifteen additional languages are published online only. It is either sold or distributed free-of-charge in 35 countries, including various international regional editions. By 2003, The Epoch Times website and group of newspapers had grown into one of the largest Chinese-language news sites and newspaper groups outside China, with local editions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and major Western European countries.
According to NBC News, “little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times,” and it is loosely organized into several regional tax free non-profits, under the umbrella of the Epoch Media Group, together with New Tang Dynasty TV. In April 2019, videos and ads from the Epoch Media Group including The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty totaled 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, according to the analytics company Tubular. That ranked it 11th among all video creators, and ahead of any other traditional news publisher, according to NBC News.
