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Johnny's Story: Death by Dabbing with Laura Stack · Authentic Living

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Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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Everyone, it's Sal Roxanne Derhodge.
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Thanks for tuning in again this week with authentically being with Roxanne.
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Today, I have a special guest, Laura Stack, and Laura, is a keynote speaker and has been doing
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this kind of work quite a while.
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She talked about productivity in the past.
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But now she has a new mission, and it's based on, unfortunately, you have a bit of an
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adversity in losing her son, to basically marijuana.
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And she's has a nonprofit called Johnny's ambassador.
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So Laura, thanks so much for being on today to spend your time and share, wisdom wisdom that
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needs to get out there, but, unfortunately, based on adversity.
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Thanks Roxanne.
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Yes.
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Johnny was, a wonderful young man, excelled in school, had a 4.0 GPA, very involved in
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activities, love Jesus.
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We're a Christian family volunteer at church taught Sunday school with me four year olds for
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many years and sadly, found marijuana, which We live in Colorado, which was the number one
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state to legalize recreational marijuana here in the states, And, he went to a party, and
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his, friend's brother is older 18.
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And here in Colorado, you can get a medical marijuana card at 18.
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And he had 1 and had marijuana and shared it, with the boys at that party, and he came home
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and told me that he had used it, and that began a struggle for the next 5 years.
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He, just instantly took to it, became addicted to it.
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And, sadly at the age of nineteen, He died by suicide.
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He became delusional and had a lot of psych psychotic thinking as a result of the very
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strong Dabs, which we can talk about here in Colorado.
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And he thought the mob was after him and had a lot of paranoid thoughts.
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And sadly, he ended his life.
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Well, let's talk about, dabbing because I'm I'm gonna assume that the average person may not
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know the terminology, but I think it'll be better to come from you.
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6 think what that is and, the impact.
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And I think what's important is I want people to understand, you know, with the prefrontal
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cortex, which is the, you know, the primary part of the brain.
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Us as adults have overly developed with teenagers, that's still developing.
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And that's, you know, the importance of hearing Laura's story about the dabbing.
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I really want you to hear that.
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And, then we'll talk a little bit more about that.
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So sure what it is, Laura.
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Yes.
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Excellent.
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And thanks for that introduction because that's really critical.
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A lot of parents think You know, gosh, I used marijuana when I was a kid, I'm fine.
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It's, you know, what's the big deal?
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It's legal.
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Right?
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So there's a couple really big issues that are very different.
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One is just the potency of the marijuana.
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And second is what marijuana does in the adolescent mind.
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So we'll talk both about those.
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So Dabs, is is no longer plant.
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So this is the new marijuana.
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So the first thing we want parents to understand is that we're not talking about the
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same products that you use.
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You know, I used marijuana a couple times in high school.
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I didn't particularly like it, so I didn't use it after that, but I remember I'm getting, you
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know, and it was grass and you put it in a paper and you rolled it up and, right, and you
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smoked it like this, like a joint.
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Today, they take the plant and they run a solvent through the plant, usually butane or
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ethanol or propane and it breaks off the trichomes of the plant on the bud where the thc
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tetra hydrocannabinol, which is the psychoactive part of the plant.
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Is contained.
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And the THC comes away from the plant into a tray with the solvent, and you throw the plant
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away.
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Okay.
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So that's the first thing people need to understand.
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There is no more natural part of this that's being used.
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It is now a chemical game, chemists are the ones who created these Dabs.
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So then with the THC and solvent mixture, you kind of filter it and try to get most of the
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solvent out and you extract it and use, distillation processes much like you would do
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with vodka.
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Right, where you say it's 5 times distilled, right, basically taking a concentrated solution
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that maybe is 80% THC.
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Distilling it makes it more pure.
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So they're trying to get the solvent out.
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They don't get it all out.
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What you'd get is like a brownish oily kind of sticky mask that looks like earwax or beeswax.
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And they they turn them into products that have formulations, consistencies, textures, tastes,
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and they name them by what they look like.
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So Dabs are the general name of using a concentrate, right, because you just it just
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takes a dab.
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So instead of, like, 2% THC in the old woodstock kind of weeds, 60, 70s, 80s, 90s.
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These can be 80, 90 up to 99.9% pure raw THC.
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So Roxanne, it's like taking cocaine and turning it into crack.
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So that's probably a pretty good analogy.
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So there are waxes and shatters and butters and live rosin and disk alerts that are oils that
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can be put into vapes, and other products that are put into edibles.
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So These Dabs, these concentrates.
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First of all, that's what we need to know as parents.
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Look at the new marijuana.
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Just go on and Google Marijuana Dabs and look at the products.
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So smoking is going way down in Colorado.
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Dabbing is going way up.
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So you get a red hot torch, called a dab rig.
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You get a beaut, a blowtorch.
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You heat up a nail till it's about red hot, little under red hot.
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You take a dab of this stuff, and you tap it to that, and it sizzles the concentrate and the
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teens then inhale the vapers.
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So it's completely chemical, highly potent, very addicting, So these are like narcotics.
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You have to think of them in a very different category.
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So that's the first part about what dabs are.
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So, and and the importance is here, like when you said, it's just the potency and the time
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that it would take around to get around the blood brain barrier, right, So again, because
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you are inhaling it.
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And So much.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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Yes.
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And so it just takes, you know, instead of smoking a whole joint, that might be 18
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milligrams of, thc, one dab Just one dab can be a 100.
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Mhmm.
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So it's very potent very fast.
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So it's many, many, many times more potent than a whole bunch of joints together as if you
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smoke them all at one time.
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Yes.
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I so let's talk a little bit about him.
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Like, what was he like?
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Like you said, you know, he seemed to, like, really be connected.
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There that there've been any kind of mental health with them at all.
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Johnny had no mental health issues.
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We have no and our family.
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He was a perfectly normal child.
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He was not depressed.
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In Colorado, they just wanna get high.
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It's kind of a ride a pack We're at 18.
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You go tell we have our pot shop docs.
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We call them.
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You make up a malady, like a migraine or a backache, and they give you your medical
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marijuana card for $700, and it is basically a criminal, kind of a activity.
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So, basically, just like in, the pill mills and the opioid crisis where the doctors were
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writing prescriptions for things that, you know, children don't have chronic debilitating
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conditions, you know, at eighteen years old.
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Now some children do, and and that's you know, seizures and severe autism.
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That's not what we're talking about.
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We're talking about the other end of the spectrum where kids are just using it.
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Illegally underage, recreationally, to get high by saying they have a medical condition.
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And the and it's a scam, basically, that Pothop docs make a lot of money off these kids.
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And then they legally can go into the dispensary at 18 and buy the matters and waxes
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and dabs.
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They take them back to our high schools and and middle schools, and they sell them.
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So that is where the drug industry comes from Here is other teens selling to other teens.
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And these very potent products are of course, dose dependent.
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And when they're weaker, we didn't see the kind of addiction and cannabis use disorder and
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psychosis.
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And they cause the the changes in the brain structure, as you mentioned, in our brains,
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our, endocannabinoid systems, which is highly regulated, have, what are called CB1 receptors,
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cannabinoid 1 receptors.
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And the thc molecule looks shockingly similar to our natural endocannabinoid called
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anandamide.
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And so the thc molecule can actually fit into the CB 1 receptor where anandamide usually
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clicks in.
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That's like when you get the runners high when you're running.
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Where you have joy.
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It regulates all sorts of body processes and, pain, and there's all sorts of different
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functions in the endocannabinoid system.
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But When the THC clicks in, it blocks.
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It binds to that receptor and prevents your natural, chemicals from regulating it the way
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that it's supposed to.
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So it when that system is arrested by the THC, the natural brain formation that is supposed to
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be occurring that has already happened in adults is halted, is stopped, and is not, able
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to carry forward.
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So you mentioned the prefrontal core there have been MRI studies of adolescents who have used
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marijuana from the age of fourteen to nineteen.
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And depending on how many times they use, the more they use the thinner the courtesies are in
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the prefrontal cortex, you actually lose brain volume.
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And so there's CB 1 receptors everywhere.
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They're in the amygdala, which normally regulates motion.
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So when THC binds to the receptors there, sometimes it's experienced as paranoia, panic,
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fear, some of the THC outcomes.
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And if you continue to do that, the psychosis then, you can have a what's called cannabis
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induced psychosis, CIP, and Our kids are in the emergency room every day.
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We have a scientific advisory board who talks to us about what they see in the emergency room
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every day with children coming in with acute, psychotic episodes.
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And, cannabis must be ceased at that time, but sadly, It's so addicting.
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Johnny went back to it.
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Even after his brain had healed and he'd recovered, he went back to it again, and then
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he would recover and go back to it again.
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And then eventually it turns into more of a schizoaffective disorder, more of a
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schizophrenia type spectrum.
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That's brought on via the cannabis rather than genetics.
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And, he was tested.
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We don't have, you know, genetics for schizophrenian, our family.
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But he did start to become as he got older when he was a senior in high school, defiant, lacked
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motivation wasn't doing school work, and and this is a kid that got a per affect 800 out of
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800 on the math portion of his SAT.
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Like, he was actually a genius in math, had a scholarship, all that went down the tubes
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because of his marijuana use.
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So with people listening, like parents, right, and, you've been there.
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Like, I've been on the treating end and, you know, really kind of talking about what the the
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team can do or what the parents can do.
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So you've been on the parent end.
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If if you could parents hold a listing and they say, you know, it's a teenager.
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You know, what can I do?
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You know, how teens are.
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Right?
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They're individuating.
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They're They've got all these pressures compared to say maybe when we were kids, we
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there was pressures, but not at the level that they are today.
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What kind of guidance would you give the parents that are listening
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Well, I would say, first of all, that, parents are more influential than anyone in a child's
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life.
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We think they're not listening, but they are.
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And we need to begin to talk to them if you have not directly had a conversation, with your
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team.
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So that the first thing is understand how influential you are.
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Secondly, you have to know that you must specifically say they are not to use marijuana.
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You do not agree with it, and you do not allow it.
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Studies have shown that when parents are kinda like, you know, kind of law's affair about it
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that teens are much more likely to use than if the teen has a parent who strongly disapproves
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of their use.
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So you do have to come out with very strong disapproval.
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Any statement or a non statement or approval will raise the odds that a child will use.
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We know that if a mom is using marijuana, 80% of the time the child will use.
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If a father is actively using marijuana, 90% of the time the child will use.
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So third is obviously Don't use it yourself.
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Be a role model.
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Be a parent.
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Don't be a buddy.
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You're not their friend.
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This is not helping them.
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It's harming them.
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There is no safe level of THC in the youth brain, and that's what parents have to
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understand.
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Next, realize it is a false narrative in the industry that there is anything helpful about
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these high th see products.
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There is no scientific study that shows any medical benefit whatsoever of these dams.
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The products that are used medically are very, very low doses of THC, and they are never
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smoked or inhaled.
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So we have to be really careful about what messages that we're sending our children and
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especially thinking that it will help your child.
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And last of all, never provide your child, with any marijuana thinking that it will help their
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stress.
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Or it will help their anxiety.
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It actually triggers mental illness.
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Depression makes anxiety worse, causes a motivational syndrome lowers IQ, lower
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fertility lowers life outcomes, all sorts of results that you don't want, including a
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fivefold increase in psychosis, and a 7 fold increase in suicide, sadly.
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The number one cause of death here in Colorado is suicide.
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15 to 19 half of our children who died by suicide had THC in their toxicology, and it
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only continues to get worse.
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As these products are becoming more and more well known and commercialized.
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Now, John, did Johnny ever get any kind of treatment Did he go Oh, yes.
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Treatments.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Inpatient.
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Oh, doctor.
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Yes.
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Treatments, mental hospitals, 3 different stays.
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You know, intensive outpatient treatments, psychiatrists, therapists, medicines.
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I mean, you name it, even TMS, trans with cranial magnetic stimulation.
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I mean, we tried everything, and he, you know, really seemed to want to get help, but he could
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not resist the lure of the marijuana when I was not chained to him 247.
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He would attempt to go back to school 3 different universities each time,
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unfortunately, would go back to the marijuana.
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Mhmm.
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So I think the lack of education, that's a thing.
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Right?
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Because here in Canada, you know, that's what's happened.
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It's legalized.
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And, you know, now you're hearing everybody reporting the it's good for anxiety.
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It's good for depression.
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We're not talking about the impact on on the, you know, the developing brain of of
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adolescence, and that's so you're saying in the emergency rooms, in Colorado, what is the
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percentage or, like, what's the rate that, emergency room physicians are seeing teens
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coming very high?
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What we just had, just yesterday, an event, stopped damming walk here in in the states,
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with 27 teams and a 130 participants all over the and we had a doctor Karen Randall, an
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emergency room physician here speaking.
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And she said cannabis use disorder is the number one problem that she sees in the
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emergency room every day.
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Teens come in, presenting with extreme vomiting called cannabinoid hyper emesis syndrome, CH as
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people don't know, because there are CB2 receptors that are the immune system in the
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gut, that high potency amounts of marijuana actually cause the opposite problem instead of
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helping nausea, it makes it much, much worse.
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We see the, paranoid acute psychotic episodes where children have to be sedated, with extreme
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amounts of sedation just to get them to calm down.
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Hallucinating, saying things that aren't true, saying they're married, or someone says a
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shifts, a shape shifter, just all kinds of strange psychosis behaviors.
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And and it's because of an overdose of the chew potent, too much.
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And edibles are a huge problem because It doesn't hit right away.
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And so there are, intoxications that happen in sadly poisonings when people u youth get a hold
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of these products that you can, you know, can have a hold a candy bar just with a 1000
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milligrams of THC just in 1, and they eat the whole thing.
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And now are having acute paranoia that people are listening to them.
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You know, it's a it's a very it has features that are very well known by our our emergency
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room docs here in Colorado, sadly.
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And we just have to continue, like you said, to educate and to push back against the false
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narrative and and continue to educate parents and teens about the dangers of today's high THC
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marijuana products, particularly as it relates to adolescent brain development and mental
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illness and suicide.
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I mean, we we are not prohibitionists.
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We're not trying to take it back and make it illegal or put people in jail.
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We are just really working to get the word out about children and youth harms who use it and
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to encourage people to get the truth and understand the science.
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So you talked a little bit about early.
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Discuss it.
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Have a, you know, a 0 tolerance, talk about it openly.
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And I often say as a system, family systems therapist, that's the important thing.
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So for kids that are like, Well, you know, you're going through things.
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I went through.
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It might be vague about that, but what you're saying is be very definite.
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If you think that something is going on.
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And, I mean, every teen goes through that because they're trying to become adults and
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they're they're dealing with a lot of different time, it's even more, difficult with all the
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pressures with the pandemic, not just on routines, but just on families in general.
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So to want you to think something is going on, talk to your teen openly.
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Well, you should be talking to your teen openly about this from the time they're eight years
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old.
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Ten years old, twelve years old.
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By the time they get to middle school, it's too late.
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One in 10 of our middle schoolers here in Colorado is addicted to marijuana.
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Half of the teens, in high school the seniors are using or have used.
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It's too late when they're twelve years old.
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To suddenly start talking about this.
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We need to talk about it, you know, very young and very early and very often.
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Now if it's too late and your team's already using And they're in high school, you have to
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you must immediately intervene.
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Get and if they're under 18, you know, to take control and get treatment for that child.
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They don't have a choice about it.
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They don't have privacy.
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And then, you know, sadly once they're over 18, which is what happened to Johnny, he withdrew
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his consents for us to be able to help him.
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We couldn't even talk to his psychiatrist or to the universities, and it was very difficult.
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So take definitive, definite action, before your child is, an adult And, you know, the
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treatment is required, whether you have to send them away and put them into a dual diagnosis
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center for cannabis induced Psychosis for recurring mental illness for the addiction.
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You have to do what you have to do.
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Drug test them.
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Go to family therapy.
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Make sure that they are in secession programs in group therapy.
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There are 12 step programs, just like alcoholics anonymous.
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There's marijuana anonymous.
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You know?
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And so take control as a parent and and get help for your child.
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Inspections, there's a lot of ways that drugs can be hidden you have to become very
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knowledgeable, and and get involved now.
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It's there is no time to waste these products can take your child from you.
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And, you know, the interesting thing is generally about 15 to 20 percent, the data,
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they talk about addiction being from something that's happened that's traumatic or or maybe
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psychiatric that would end up in an addiction.
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But what you're saying is what they're seeing with this level of THC I'm I would be
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interested in knowing about the
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other way around.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's not you know, it used to be kind of the chicken egg.
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Oh, the kids having mental health issues or they would have gotten psychosis anyway or
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they're depressed.
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Right?
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And so they start using.
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In Colorado, totally opposite end of the spectrum.
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What we see here are children who it's it's a thing.
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It's a rite of passage.
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They they wanna get high.
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And when you're eighteen, you go get your bed card, you buy it, you sell it to everybody
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else.
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It's everywhere.
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Any high schooler here in Colorado can get marijuana in 5 minutes.
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It's hard to get alcohol here, and it's hard to get, cigarettes and jewels because they the age
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is twenty one.
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But it's very easy to get marijuana.
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It's highly accessible, and easy to get.
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And so that's they're all using it as a party drug as in in its causing the rates of
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depression and mental illness psychosis, bipolar, schizophrenia, you name it.
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We see we are seeing it all as a result of these potent potent products in our teens.
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So what, you know, and and I appreciate that this is this is something dead to your heart,
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you've lost, you know, someone's so significant.
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So for parents listening out there and they're like, I don't, you know, don't know where to
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go.
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I need more information.
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You know, I I know that, you know, I do the traditional things.
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And, of course, you know, with an addiction as it progresses, as a family member, you know,
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how many times you're like, you know, getting them out of somewhere, you're getting them into
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treatment, and you're trying to do your best.
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It's a it's a lonely world, and it's a tough world for family members, and they're people
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are trying so hard and there's certain things that parents need to learn too so that they
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don't, you know, kind of precipitate or move along with the things that they could do
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differently that may be out of the anomaly for them as parenting.
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So where what kind of places would you point them towards
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No.
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Of course, of course, our website, to get educated, we have everything is free, webinars,
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videos, tool kits, all kinds of graphics and tip sheets and just educate yourself first.
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And so johnny's ambassadors.org is our website named after our son johnny's ambassadors dot
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org.
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And then, if you have to, you can hire an interventionist.
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This is a new field.
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Relatively new field, to get your child into treatment.
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They will help you find the right treatment, whether it's wilderness therapy, find a
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therapist, in your local area.
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There's a professional association of interventionists who can come in and intervene
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if you don't know how to get control back.
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In the situation because many parents don't know what to do next, and where to take their
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child.
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So sometimes having someone like you, someone who is a consultant in the area who can give
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them, that advice and help them hook up with the right treatments is really critical.
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Well, this has been, you know, so valuable to people listening.
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I'm sure there's a lot of parents that unfortunately are going the same things, or
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maybe they're seeing their team, starting to kind of, you know, you know, dabble in things.
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So that, you know, that strict specific, take charge, do what you can, and to reach out.
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So I would say, thanks so much.
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This is amazing work that you're you're doing out there.
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It's needed.
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With the teenagers that I've seen over my career, I did a lot of work with the university
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here, where I am locally.
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And unfortunately, we do see a lot of, psychotic breaks and also a lot of, you know,
25:43
suicides, that are whether they're related or not, it's it's unfortunate or or younger
25:48
children, teams, sorry, are in trouble, and we really need to figure out how we can support
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them, as best as we can.
25:55
We, like you said, Our job's not done, in my opinion, until this prefrontal cortex is
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developed at age twenty five.
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You know?
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And I think, you know, we think they're 18.
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They're adults.
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They don't have the skills they need us, and we gotta do.
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We may not be the the person that they like very much, but that's okay.
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Still be alive.
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That's your number one job as a parent.
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It's to keep your kid alive.
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Right.
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Of course.
26:19
So get them beyond over the other side.
26:20
So, Lauren, thanks so much.
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Please do reach out if you're needing, anything.
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If you're wanting to consult with me about, you know, a team by all means, just go to chat with
26:31
Roxanne I'll spend the time, help you as best as I can, and get you off to the resources that
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you need, or go to Laura's website.
26:37
Laura, again, thanks so much, and good luck in in this space.
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And, if there's anything I could ever do to help you out, please let me know.
26:45
Thank you so much, Roxanne.
26:47
Thanks everyone.
26:47
Hope to talk to you again soon.
26:49
Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
26:55
healthy change.
26:56
Roxanne is a keynote speaker psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
27:02
roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
27:06
We'll see you next time.
27:08
An authentic living with Roxanne.