Teenagers and Marijuana During the past 5 years have teenagers been using more marijuana? Well, the statistics show that they are.
In fact, since 1992, the use of marijuana has doubled. Why are teenagers using marijuana and what are the effects? This question will be answered to the fullest with test results, recent statistics, and personal experiences. Many people believe that kids start to use marijuana because their parents did it back in the 70’s. They want to see what it’s like so they try it once. That one time leads to another, and then another.
Eventually they’re addicted and may use it every day. Peer pressure is another factor. If you just hanging around with your friends and a couple of them are smoking marijuana, you might think that you’re a pansy if you don’t smoke it with them. So if you just smoke it once, may be they’ll still think your ‘cool’, and once again one time leads to another.
Marijuana can easily be researched on the Internet. You can find out how to grow it in your own back yard, how to sell it at the right price, how to hide it from authority figures, and how to make a joint out if it. Movies and songs can also be a major factor. Many current songs are directly related to marijuana.
A popular rap CD has a picture of a marijuana leaf on the entire cover and labeled “Da Chronic”, a slang tern that means “the marijuana”. In movies, marijuana is talked about frequently also. Some movies like “Half Baked” focus on marijuana and teenagers being high all the time. In school is another factor of the increase of marijuana. When a number of teachers from various school were asked if the drug problem in their school is getting better or worst, 41% said that it’s getting worst.
However only 15% of principle say that it’s getting better. In 1996, 10.9% of junior high students admit to smoking marijuana and 11.4% in 1997. That increase doesn’t seem that much, be officials say that it’s a huge increase considering that is it within 1 year. The increase of marijuana doesn’t completely focus on teenagers.
A 13-year-old is 3 times more likely to smoke marijuana than a 12-year-old is. It is discouraging to think that there is even a statistic for kids using drugs at such a young age. But surprisingly, the statistics go even younger than that. For children between the age of 6 and 9, the use of marijuana has doubled. The number’s also show that the older you get, the more likely you are to using marijuana.
In 1995 a survey asked a number of high school students from all around the country and this is what they found. 19.9% of 8th graders admit to marijuana use, 34.1% of 10th graders, and 41.7% of 12 graders. Which means that 1 out of 4 8th graders admit to using marijuana. That doesn’t even include the students that don’t admit it. 1 out of 3 10th graders admit to marijuana use, and more that 2 out of 5 12th graders.
The numbers are amazing when you realize how many kids are smoking marijuana these days. It makes you wonder how the future of the nation. It is so easy for kids to get hooked on marijuana in today’s society. 85% of adolescents say the drugs are the most important problem teenagers face.
From personal experience at a recent concert, I was asked numerous time to smoke marijuana from people that I did not know and I’m sure that it has happened to most teenagers at a concert or any other gathering of some sort. All you have to do is to try it once and it is very difficult to say ‘No’ after that. It is very easy to separate the people that smoke marijuana from the people that don’t smoke marijuana. Most kids who now depend on marijuana to live say that they wish they never started. Just about all of them, 97%, say that they still used pot even after they realized it became a problem. This just shows how hard it is to stop smoking marijuana the more you use it.
85% of the kids say that pot interfered with driving, school, work, and home. Kids often skip school to get high with their friends who are also depended on marijuana. It is that much harder to stop smoking marijuana because probably your friends smoke marijuana just as much as you do so you might think that they think you aren’t cool because you want to quit. 66% of the kids say that they had given up important activities to use marijuana.
These activities might include school, homework, work, family actives, after school clubs, school sports, or hanging out with their friends who don’t smoke marijuana. 53% said that they felt they were losing control of their life because they used marijuana in heavy amounts for long periods of time. For example, teenagers would stay out late and smoke marijuana all night, then come home in the middle of the night (or stay over someone’s house) and sleep all day, then go out the next night and do the same thing. If they went to school the next day they would not be able to participate of learn to the fullest because they would be recuperating. 35% of the kids said they were so dependent on marijuana that they wanted to cut back on marijuana use, but were unable to. This statistic clearly shows how marijuana is so addictive because the kids tried to cut back just a little bit and were still unable to.
Another test shows that non-marijuana smokers have a better chance to succeed in life as compared to with marijuana smokers. Kids who don’t smoke were found to be able to cope with their problems better than marijuana smokes. For example, maybe a non-marijuana smoker failed an important test in high school. That student might go to the teacher to maybe bring his or her grade up or study more for the next test. But the marijuana smoker might get depressed, go out that night and smoke pot. The next morning that person would have to recover and miss school the next day, then soon enough end up in a very deep hole.
Likewise, the test shows that kids who don’t smoke pot tend to have lower stress, better self-control, less lying, and better relationships with their parents as opposed to kids who do smoke pot. I believe that this statistic is very beneficial to the addictive part of marijuana. For example, if a kid who doesn’t smoke pot stays out late over a friends house, when his or her parents asks them where they where and that person didn’t lie, the consequences might be very little and everything would be fine. But if that person were out smoking marijuana, her or she would not be thinking straight the next morning and make some crazy lie to try and hide the fact that they were smoking pot.
Their parents would probably find out that they were lying and the consequences would be more because they lied, smoked pot, and stayed out late. Then the child would get mad and smoke pot more because it made him forget about everything. However, all the talk about how marijuana is bad for you, many of them a simply myths. Through many of test on humans and lab rats, there has never been a death through an overdose of marijuana. When tested on mice, there was found to have a ratio of 40,000:1. This can be compared to between 4:1 and 10:1 for an alcohol overdose.
Alcohol overdosed kill about 5,000 people annually, but not a single person for marijuana. Also, the though that marijuana kills brain cells is also completely fals …
