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Marijuana Legalization May Contribute to Abuse

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Cannabis accounts for a quarter of Iowans seeking treatment for substance abuse.

Marijuana is often branded as harmless by its proponents, but according to the 2012 Iowa Drug Report, 26% of Iowans seeking drug treatment cite the plant as their drug of choice. Ned Presnall, keynote speaker of the upcoming Governor's Conference on Substance Abuse, says decriminalization has led to decreased perceptions of risk.

"Whenever there's a cultural decrease in perception about risk of any behavior, people tend to uptake it more and say, 'Oh this is not a problem; it's not going to cause me difficulty.' And that's been a big cultural shift throughout the United States," says Presnall.

Presnall is the executive director of Clayton Behavioral Addiction Medicine Center in St. Louis and an adjunct professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. The conference takes place next week and he says misconceptions about substance abuse still run rampant.

"People with addiction are not themselves bad people. But when someone's addicted, they do engage in a lot of bad behavior oftentimes, and so it's easy to mistake the disease for the person," says Presnall.

In this River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with Presnall about substance abuse, stigma, and treatment.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River