News & Views
The brain on pot
An Oct. 29 report in the New York Times caught our attention. It is written by Abigail Sullivan Moore, co-author of The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up. The bottom line: "Concerns over (marijuana's)...
In Hines’ sight: suicide prevention
It was his tenth wedding anniversary, but Kevin Hines insisted on making just one more stop before heading home to San Francisco to celebrate with his wife. "We've got to keep working to get the messages of suicide prevention out there," he said Oct. 22 in Loveland,...
Death in Ferguson and THC
We have removed the original blog post that was here discussing 18-year-old Michael Brown and marijuana. The article and our intentions were misstated and mischaracterized. In his remarks about the tragic shooting of Michael Brown, President Obama said it best: “Of...
Colorado high school getting higher
As the small, Colorado town of Manitou Springs gears up for a city council vote that will determine whether marijuana stores can continue to operate within its limits, a physician there is reporting troubling numbers out of Manitou Springs High School. After reviewing...
Marijuana use going up
To understand marijuana and the impact of its legalization, focus like a laser on the data on which everyone bases their interpretations and explanations. News reports often don't square with the data. Case in point: this article appearing in The Washington Post about...
Trends in fatal motor vehicle crashes before and after marijuana commercialization in Colorado
The results of this research were published in Drug Alcohol Dependence in September 2014. Study Title: Trends in fatal motor vehicle crashes before and after marijuana commercialization in Colorado Co-authors: Salomonsen-Sautel S, Min SJ, Sakai JT, Thurstone C, Hopfer...
Marching the talk in the Army
I watched in 2011 as Dr. Christian Thurstone, my relatively quiet and shy (c'mon, I'm comparing him to me) psychiatrist-scientist-husband (and the man whose website you're reading) wrestled with the news of mental health problems among active-duty and discharged...
Marijuana-opiate study raises questions
An article recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims states with medical marijuana laws are associated with significantly lower rates of opioid mortality. There are significant limitations to this research making it irresponsible to...
Smell a rat?
It's a Friday night, and we decided to assemble a casual focus group at home to review major elements of the $2 million marijuana-prevention campaign the State of Colorado is aiming at youth. In mere minutes and over slices of pizza (extra cheese), our self-described...
Thurstone among 2014 ‘Top Docs’
I'm humbled by the praise of my physician peers, who named me among Denver's "Top Docs" in this month's edition of 5280 magazine. To those of you who thought of me and took the time to cast this vote of confidence in my work, thank you so much. For the third time, I’m...
Read the book
Clearing the Haze is a guide designed to help parents determine whether their child may have a substance problem and, if so, how to begin to address it. This book includes the voices and insight of experts in substance abuse counseling, young people in recovery, and parents who have lived the nightmare of adolescent addiction.