Negative Effects Of Marijuana

Why does your teen smoke Marijuana? Is it because of a toxic Family, Divorce, mental disorder, or fitting in? With the majority of teens struggling from depression, anxiety, stress, Insomnia or other mental disorders, it can take a toll on an adolescent's psyche. With 95,000 adolescents ages 12-17 experiencing major depressive episodes, only 41.8 percent receive help. Most mental disorders and psychological issues among minors go undocumented so they turn to other methods. Most teens who use marijuana do so to help cope with things they don't know how to control. Marijuana can give teens that outlet they seek during things like a divorce, an uncomfortable social situation or a physiological.

This statistic showing that the used of marihuana is increase every years. This affect the teenager in school, because affect the memory, cannot concentrate, this will end on poor performing, dropping out without graduation. Most of the teenager that used marijuana their parent not has idea what going with their young. Also this will be affecting their relation with their families, some come aggressive or depress. According to National Institute of Drug Abuse, students who smoke marijuana tend to get lower grades and are more likely to drop out of high school. In United State the teenager start work since of age fifteen in some place, but several studies have linked workers' marijuana smoking with increased absences, tardiness, accidents, and job turnover. ("What is marijuana? | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)", 2012).

The uses of marijuana amongst teenagers has increased over the years making it the most accessible drug in America as well as one the most beneficial due to its medical uses. According to the article of Marijuana Use Among Youths Is a Serious Problem, written by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) (2004), stated that the uses of marijuana has impacted the youth in many ways due to the unknown factors of marijuana such as admittance to treatment facilities, and being admitted into emergency rooms. The CASA took the con side of the argument dealing with the issues of marijuana use with teenagers. The second article Marijuana Should Be

Marijuana is the most popular illicit drug used among our teenagers in the United States. Research shows that 42% of high school seniors have smoked Cannabis, 18% within the past month and 5% smoked daily and 1 in 6 are addicts. More than 64% of teenagers reported that marijuana is very easily available (Gary). Unfortunately, some parents live in a world of denial and say “It’s not my kid. My child doesn’t smoke.” Unbeknown to us, there are unfavorable concerns for many young marijuana abusers such as the risk of addiction, poor school performances and a “gateway” to other lethal substances. Smoking marijuana increases respiratory diseases, impaired immune function, cognitive problems and motivational impairment. (National Institute on Drug Abuse). It is the leading cause of abnormal cognitive development which persists long after abstinence. Marijuana is the main drug used by children who seek emergency medical treatments and screened following an arrest or autopsies (Dennis et at).

I am very concerned about the legalization of marijuana, since I am a parent of six children, whose ages range from nine to twenty-two. I have made it a point to educate my children on how smoking marijuana can affect their brain development. Just recently my youngest son, has told me that he has learned that middle school and high school kids have been eating marijuana in different forms of baked foods, such as brownies, chocolate truffles and rice crispies. The kids are over eating the marijuana treats because they don’t think it’s getting them “high”. The children are not realizing that it takes time for the body to absorb the THC. They then end up in the hospital for feeling ill because they have eating too much of the drug. The National Families in Action Campaign, reported that pot-related emergency admissions have tripled and expulsion rate has gone up 40% since the legalization of medical marijuana due to pot related incidents (5). Parents will need to be more aware of the potential risks and signs of THC posing due to the high levels of THC found in the marijuana that

Despite all of the efforts put fourth in attempting to better educate and stop drug use in America studies show that drug use by juveniles has substantially increased within recent years. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) juveniles as young as eighth grade are using drugs such as marijuana on a daily basis. Unfortunately, most of these juveniles have also experimented with alcohol at this age as a gateway drug to start using marijuana and so forth. (NIDA) There are many aspects that could impact why children so young are getting access to these drugs. The NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow states that, “Marijuana use not only places teens at risk of addiction but also impairs their memory, judgment, and ability to learn.” These drugs are now so easily accessible at such a vulnerable and impressionable age that it could have devastating impacts on the juvenile’s future in the criminal justice system. Important factors that go alongside in drug abuse with juveniles would be peer pressure, family factors, and lastly emotional problems they are experiencing in their young years of life.

It is easy and cheap to achieve. Therefore, youth begin drug abuse with caffeine, nicotine and alcohol to seek desired effect. If these fails to provide pleasure anymore as individual needed, then the individual most likely to choose marijuana as next drugs. The short term use can alter the mood or to reach desired sate of well-being with less likely negative impact but the prolonged use can cause personality, mood, cognitive functioning, various physiological problems and can be fetal if there is interaction with other drugs or if overdoses (Perkinson,

Meanwhile marijuana has not accounted for a single death in the United States. This has led many teenagers to switch over to marijuana and by legalizing it the switch to a safer drug would continue and it would also make it cheaper than other illicit drugs. This correlation can be seen by the statistics provided by the NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) 2011 study. About 25% of teens surveyed said they tried marijuana at least once last year, a statistically significant rise of about 4% since 2007. Additionally, 6.6% of 12th graders also admitted to smoking weed daily (Gwynne). The study has also shown historic lows of use of alcohol and cigarettes since 1981.Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%), (Gwynne). As teenagers will always continue to experiment with illegal substances, its best we influence them with the safest drug, marijuana. This change is already happening as NIDA studies have shown teenager marijuana use at historic highs and alcohol and cigarette use at historic lows, and will continue if marijuana is perceived as safe and becomes cheaper with

Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area reports that “marijuana use among the ages 12 to 17 years increased 6.6 percent.” Although recreational marijuana is only allowed to be purchased by people twenty-one and older, teenagers are still managing to getting ahold of it. A. Eden Evans, a director at the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital(MGH) has done a large amount of research on the effect of marijuana on adolescents. She found that some immediate physical risks of marijuana are “impaired coordination, slowed reaction time, slow processing on particularly unexpected or complex events”(Legalizing Marijuana: The Public Health Pros and Cons 14:44). Although they are unsure exactly how long these side effects last, they do have a negative effect on young children trying to learn and can reduce their quality of learning experience. Evans mentions a study done at MGH on the impact of marijuana to the body functions, that when testing kids early “[they] didn't find function difficulties [but] five years later those who had starting using marijuana had worsened executive function”(17:59). Drug Rehab, a website that offers ways to overcoming addictions, explains in further detail some of the specific risks and statistics to help show marijuana's high health risk. One of the risks they cite on the website is marijuana's addictive nature, where they state that “10% of users will develop dependence over time.” Addiction to marijuana can lead to many other drug addictions. On the same website they take a look into another medical study on males, that reports “that teenage boys who abused alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana were 2 to 3 times more likely to abuse prescription drugs during young adulthood” (Drugrehab.us).

What is Cannabis? Cannabis is a depressant drug derived from the Cannabis Sativa plant. (Year 10 HPE, Drug Education, 2015) Cannabis slows down the messages going to and from the brain to the body. (Australian Drug Foundation, 2015). It is also commonly known as Marijuana, pot, weed, hash, and dope. High doses of cannabis can also lead to hallucinations, making activities such as driving or operating machinery exceptionally dangerous. The main active chemical in cannabis is THC, which affects the parts of the brain responsible for thinking, memory, pleasure, coordination and time perception. (Live Science, 2015) The risk of injury or death is considerably higher when using hallucinogenic drugs such as Cannabis, as users cannot accurately perceive dangers or risks.

More than 20 years ago, a case study about the marijuana effects on human’s health was researched by Wayne Hall, who is also a director of the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University Queensland. He wanted to know if smoking marijuana will be good for adolescents since adults can be treated with this drug, or will it negatively impact those

Functional Consequences of Marijuana Use in Adolescents: A Critique of Jacobus, Bava, Cohen-Zion, Mahmood, and Tapert (2009)

Even just one “hit” of marijuana can lead to your children’s lives spiralling out of control - a whorl wind complex that is increasingly difficult to escape from. Packed with addictive ingredients, marijuana is targeted towards the teens of today. Peer pressure makes drugs such as marijuana an inevitable

Why start using Marijuana? Many people say that smoking marijuana is bad and that one shouldn’t do it, but there are a lot of people that don’t know why. There is also a large percentage of children who are peer pressured into trying for the first time. “According to the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2.1 million people in the US abused marijuana for the first time that year”. Marijuana has many negative effects that people don’t even think of before they use. Smoking marijuana can have negative effects on your physical and mental health. Some of these effects will also stay with these users for the rest of their lives. Marijuana should not be legalized, because it lowers brain function, decreases reaction time, and is a gateway drug.

If the parents or one of the parents uses marijuana then it wouldn’t be a nice family to live in. Marijuana, after all, can give bad side effects to the user and if the user is already in turmoil then it can lead to the family separation or the child moving somewhere else to be safer. Sometimes even there will be noises and abuses caused by the use of marijuana in the family.