Colleagues & Conversation @ Yellowbrick

Not Your Baby Boomers’ Cannabis

Thursday February 16, 2023 | 6pm-7:30pm CST

Conference Description:

Not Your Baby Boomers’ Cannabis
With widespread legalization of recreational cannabis, there is a common assumption that this defines it as safe, at least for adults. However the science of cannabis, including its many chemical components, and the dramatic increase of potency of its main psychoactive ingredient since the 1970’s, raise serious questions about its safety.

Recent studies of cannabis indicate that it can be more cognitively impairing, and for longer periods of time after use, than was previously appreciated. Other research from multiple contexts over many years shows that cannabis frequently activates and aggravates multiple mental illnesses, especially those on the spectrum of psychosis. This phenomenon has also become more frequent as the potency of THC in cannabis has increased. Perhaps most importantly, the possible or actual short- and long-term effects of most of the chemical components of the cannabis plant have never been specifically studied. Such research has only focused on about half a dozen such chemicals out of over a hundred.

This conversation will help the audience with a more well-informed perspective on risks of cannabis use, with an emphasis on risks to adolescents and young adults.

Objectives:

1. 1. Gain knowledge about how the potency of cannabis and its relative content of THC and CBD have changed over several decades.
   2. Understand more about the relationship between cannabis use and activation of psychiatric, especially psychotic symptoms.
   3. Learn about the definition of a “dose response curve” and how this applies to cannabis and some of its effects.

Presenters:

Dr. David Baron – Medical Director
Yellowbrick

David Baron, MD, was born and raised in part in New York City, and later in Livingston, New Jersey. He received his B.A. in Psychology (magna cum laude) and M.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Baron went on to complete his psychiatry residency at Tufts/New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Dr. Baron is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Rosalind Franklin University/The Chicago Medical School. In that role, he supervised psychiatric residents in their community psychiatry rotation for 15 years. During that time he also served as Administrative Psychiatrist, and Interim Director of Mental Health Services, for the DuPage County Health Department, supervising 50 psychiatrists and over 200 other clinical staff.

Dr. Baron’s clinical and administrative experience and practice since completing his training in 1989 has been within a developmental neurobiological understanding of mental illness. Over the course of his career, he has worked to understand mind and brain as different languages for the same essential human experience, including the complexity of neuroscience, the evolutionary basis of the human brain and behavior, and the deeply personal subjective experience of every individual.

Dr. Baron is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He served on the Ethics Committee of the Illinois Psychiatric Society as a member from 2001 to 2006, and as Chairman from 2006 to 2011.

Dr. Baron resides in Evanston. He enjoys travel, golf and cooking. He is a father to one emerging adult son.

Questions:

Call Tracy Ashworth 847-869-1500 ext. 207