Marijuana is just a plant and Oklahoma voters just approved its use as a medicine. Does that mean it is good for you?

Not if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

According to the latest recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are major concerns about marijuana’s effect on children’s short-term growth and long-term neurological development. Those warnings were echoed in the journal Pediatrics.

Almost half of the states, including Oklahoma, have legalized marijuana for medicinal reasons or recreational use. If you listen to the liberal media in Oklahoma, you would conclude that marijuana is harmless – much safer than alcohol.

But doctors are deeply concerned that a growing number of babies are being damaged by exposure to marijuana.

This is a case where social change has gotten in front of science and common sense. Since marijuana possession is illegal under federal law, limited studies have been made to its ill effects.

But even with the existing data, the dangers are evident.

Doctors tell breastfeeding mothers to quit using the drug and pregnant women should definitely quit immediately. THC, the bad part of marijuana, lingers in mother’s milk for up to six days after the last use.

And national reports from the Journal of the American Medical Association and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health show that marijuana use by pregnant women has almost doubled in the United States. Among urban, low-income pregnant women, as many as 28 percent use marijuana.

If marijuana has any medical benefit, it is vastly outweighed by the health risk, especially to babies.