Marijuana Teen Substance Abuse

Marijuana is still is a leading drug among most of the teenagers in the United States. Its popularity has been on a rapid rise over the past years. People smoke or ingest this drug for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons for using marijuana may be for religious, medicinal or recreational purposes (Butts & Roman 32). The consequences of marijuana depend on the level of THC (the major chemical in marijuana that makes one you high) the plant has. What is marijuana? According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Marijuana is a greenish-gray assortment of the dried and shredded leaves/flowers of Cannabis sativa plant. It is known by different names such as weed, herb, pot, ganja, Mary Jane, among many others (Golden, Peterson, & Haley 44). It can be consumed in a number of ways such as smoking or cooked with tea. In the contemporary society, there are numerous reasons as to why the teenagers are increasingly using pot, and these reasons are driven by a many issues which will be discussed.

 

Marijuana is the most utilized addictive substance by most teenagers. There are is an increase in the number of teenagers who are using marijuana presently in comparison to the previous years. Marijuana usage rates for the high school students has been on the rise between 2010 and 2014 from 5.2 percent to 6.1 percent for the high school seniors, 2.8 percent to 3.3 percent for tenth grade students and 1.0 percent to 1.2 percent for eighth grade students (Bestor 23). High rates of cannabis use by adolescents can influence learning, judgment and their motor skills, and has the potential for future abnormalities in the development of the brain. The manifestations of marijuana addiction are diverse, yet some are extremely apparent; for instance, dropping out of school, getting high prior to, during, as well as after school, lying to the parents, and so on. It does not take years to turn into a pot addict.

 

Peer pressure frequently plays a role in increasing the number of teenagers who smoke pot (Sheff 12). Peer pressure is an aspect that happens in the life of every teenager; it can commence as early as a teenager is in the elementary school. Being pressured into things, for example, purchasing certain types of clothing or listening to a certain kind of music are things a teen can be pressured into by his/her peers. Other peer pressures can be as critical as utilizing of marijuana. Teenagers have an invulnerability illusion that makes them accept that nothing will occur to them, or nothing wrong will transpire. Peer pressure can be strong to the point that it can lead young people or youngsters to significant circumstances that conflict with their better judgment, such that it can push a youthful grown-up to their first use with weed. Indeed, in the wake of being educated about the harm smoking pot can bring about, teenagers can still be pressured into using it. More adolescents give into conforming to peer pressure, particularly in areas such as marijuana use.

 

Recent studies demonstrate that nearly 23% of high school seniors have routinely utilized pot, and about 50% of all adolescents have attempted it (Hyde & Setaro 30). Students simply do not end up listening to bits of gossip about it; some even know where they can get marijuana. Studies demonstrate that 91% of high school students know somebody at their school which offers weed. Pressure for the utilization of pot does not recently originate from the friends only. Youthful celebrities are routinely photographed with it, for example, a celebrity such as Rihanna wearing a shirt with the five-leaf plant which is a representation of pot. Most weed clients contrast weed with cigarettes and accept that the main damage that originates from pot is the increment of hunger. What they fail to know is the genuinely terrifying side effects that weed can have on their youthful brains.

 

Beside nervousness, hallucinations, and panic attacks, studies demonstrate that there is a conceivable connection between youths who smoke pot as well as the ones who develop schizophrenia (Monti 22). The other impacts that marijuana can result, in the long run, are harm to the lungs and the reproductive organs. Another argument that cannabis users make is that they do not believe in the addiction of pot. The National Institute on Drug Abuse evaluates that around 9% of the individuals who use pot get addicted and the number shoots up to very nearly 17% in the event that its initially utilized amid a person's youthful years. Peer pressure has made it hard for high school students to stay far from it, yet it can be an immense alleviation in the wake of quitting. Cannabis is depicted like to a lesser extent a major ordeal consistently. State after state has authorized weed for medicinal utilization and now they are beginning to affirm it recreationally.

 

Teenagers use marijuana so that they may relieve their stress conditions, anxiety, fear or psychological issues. Many youths make use of marijuana because "it gets them going." For a few teenagers, cannabis utilization is a method to help them manage their daily activities. These teenagers report smoking pot when they get up in the morning so they can get up and go to school. Subsequently, some relate their utilization of marijuana with "staying in school." Other teenagers use marijuana so that "it can make them cool": Many teenagers report they utilize pot to ease stress and to help adapt to life's dissatisfactions, for example, challenges at school and troubles at home. These youngsters assert that utilizing marijuana permits them to unwind and calm down. For other teenagers, they use marijuana because "it makes them feel better": Marijuana utilization is once in a while attributed as an approach to enhance inclination and overlook "bad things." Some teenagers living with depression accept that weed utilization is the most effective prescription, and they propose that nothing else has met expectations. These teenagers as well note they can control the amount of marijuana they utilize and know when they have had "enough."

 

There are those teenagers who use marijuana so "it may help them to concentrate." There are some teenagers who relate their utilization of marijuana to enhanced concentration with certain school activities, for example, assignment arranged subjects such as math. They report that utilizing marijuana helps them to "work" at their best and complete their school work. On account of teenagers living with the hyperactivity disorder, there is some conviction that weed is more powerful than prescriptions like Ritalin. For other teenagers, "it assists them to find sleep." To them, marijuana utilization is an instrument that makes them be able to find sleep. A few adolescents portray their "occupied personalities" during the evening and accept that cannabis permits them to sleep and "quit thinking" since marijuana is superior to taking resting pills. For other teenagers, marijuana "gives the opportunity to be themselves": most teenagers characterize their successive weed use with having the capacity to be in contact with their feelings and emotions. In this manner, they assert that weed permits them to be more open and personal in their discourses with companions.

 

Many youths use marijuana since the popular culture endorses its use. The popular culture in the contemporary American society encourages the teenagers to indulge in the consumption of marijuana. For instance, music videos that are released by celebrities often show them using as well as praising marijuana. It makes the teenagers seem as if they are happy after using marijuana. There are as well many released videos under pseudonyms of marijuana. Some of the celebrities who have openly been demonstrated utilizing marijuana by media include the likes of Lil Wayne. It is worth noting that teenagers hold these celebrities with high status, and they may even attempt to copy what they practice in their music. As a result, this makes teenagers ape them and eventually turn into marijuana smokers.

 

Psychological reliance: The increment in today's pot consumption has physical outcomes, as well as psychological ones also, with teenagers being the most defenseless exploited people. Specialists find that when young people begin smoking pot at an early age, it is frequently utilized with more noteworthy recurrence and as a part of bigger amounts than if began sometime down the road. While we have a tendency to release the capability of weed reliance - particularly when contrasted with tobacco, liquor or illicit medications like heroin - around 1 in 6 youngsters will get to be dependent. In the event, that marijuana is frequently used to diminish the testing feelings ordinary of youthfulness, it simple to perceive how infrequent smokers may get to be dependent. Teenagers who pick up a feeling of certainty by smoking weed in social circumstances or utilization it to help them unwind or slumber will doubtlessly think that it is convincing to utilize once more. As opposed to creating inward aptitudes to adapt to life, pot can turn into their go-to hotspot for solace.

 

Teenager drug usage has been on the increase from the 90's. Nevertheless, marijuana is amongst the most popular drugs on the grounds that it is so natural to get and normally inexpensive (Califano 32). Most teenagers smoke marijuana so as to forget everything, without considering the negative outcomes that marijuana has on them. Marijuana sells a lot nowadays and it is a considerable measure more terrible than it used to be individuals' bodies are building up resistance's to the medications the merchants need to add more things so that it may help one to get the "high". Separation is on the ascent and children feel its their deficiency and they require an approach to escape from the torment of their fouled up life. An alternate reason is on account of their friends weight them into utilizing medications most weed clients are 12-18. The THC in the cannabis makes you encounter the "high" yet what truly make the THC develop is the point at which this sap turns out on to the leaves and stems. There are a considerable number of things which need to be overcome by our teenagers yet they attempt to take all of them out without a moment's delay when they ought to truly concentrate on maybe a couple at once then when they unravel those they ought to proceed onward to the following. With all the medication utilization going ahead in this nation and on the off chance that its developing like the reviews say we have to chip away at that before all America is only a pack of smolder outs.

 

Most high school students use marijuana as a result of curiosity. They wonder how it would make them feel. Pressure from friends and other impacts from relatives, and conflicts with their parents are some of the significant reasons as to why adolescents use marijuana. The impact of friends, as well as relatives, is a noteworthy motivation behind why adolescents choose to smoke marijuana. At the point when pressure is mounted on most teenagers, they have a noteworthy yearning to be accepted by their peers or fill some sort space where they think they have to be at, and they truly don't have to. A few adolescents will do anything to fill that space, and they will fall into medications, sex, wrongdoing, and so on. Different impacts incorporate uneasiness, outrage, discouragement, weariness, and various different things. The rate of at which marijuana utilization takes place does not differ significantly with aspects such as race; the marijuana usage rate among all races is about the same.

 

Marijuana is utilized in numerous ways. The most prominent and longest utilized system is the joint, which is a hand moved cigarette with marijuana inside. Blunts are additionally getting to be more prominent. An obtuse is a stogie in which the tobacco is supplanted with marijuana. Different routines incorporate utilizing glass tubes, otherwise called bongs, pipes, and eating. An example is the blending of marijuana with brownie blend and preparing it. Other odd approaches to utilize marijuana incorporate utilizing an apple as funnel and utilizing different protests, for example, milk containers, or pop bottles. Marijuana is likewise utilized as a part of numerous blends with different medications. Joints are in some cases plunged into PCP and smoked. Blending marijuana with different medications may expand the inebriating impacts, contingent upon the sort of medication it is blended with and the kind of marijuana it is.

 

Another reason as to why there has been a rising usage of marijuana by teenagers is the easy accessibility of this drug, that is, acquiring marijuana is simple. Most teenagers get marijuana for free from their peers. Most male students purchase their marijuana from the local neighborhood or within the school. It can be accessed from close friends or the "local peddler". It can as well be grown. In most of the areas in the United States, there are at least one supplier of marijuana. It is something that is easy to acquire and purchase. Various distinctive things can happen to marijuana clients. They get to be may excessively inspired by common, ordinary things. They disregard other vital things and concentrate on senseless things. For instance, the client may discover his/ her shoe extremely intriguing to take a gander at. They may concentrate on it for drawn out stretches of time. Likewise, time appears to pass gradually. To somebody that is high, minutes feel like hours. This makes the impacts of marijuana feel much more than the three or four hours they truly last. The client feels loose, and his/her circulatory strain drops underneath ordinary. This happens in light of the fact that marijuana makes the veins extend. Alongside these impacts, there is a loss of offset and bewilderment. The client gets to be exceptionally languid and feels detached, bringing about a tired feeling while affected by marijuana. The client may get to be extremely ravenous and has a sudden desire to eat a considerable measure of sustenance. This impact is called having the "munchies". While utilizing marijuana, the client's mouth might likewise get to be extremely dry. This impact is called having "cottonmouth." Hallucinations may take place depending on the type of marijuana that someone has smoked.

 

Other influences that make the teenagers use marijuana emanate from the mass media (Nelson 42). For instance, in music, there is a music titled “Stoner,” which literally means someone who smokes weed. Celebrities such as Two Chainz are often seen in their video smoking a lot of marijuana. They are good examples and individuals, particularly adolescents, admire them. On the off chance, that they discuss smoking marijuana in their verses then that is the thing that their audience members will be affected to do. An alternate path from the media is through films. The film "Friday" is around two companions, Smokey (Chris Tucker) and Craig (Ice Cube), which live in the hood in Los Angeles, CA. Smokey gets some weed from the area dope merchant Big Worm (Faizon Love) and volunteers to offer it for him. Rather Smokey satisfies his name and smokes up the entire marijuana, and he kicks Craig off on it as well. Be that as it may Big Worm says he needs his cash by ten o'clock that night, so they experience various assignments to attempt to get the money.(Friday) It is common to see the motion picture, it is funny, and when you make smoking marijuana amusing it tells youngsters that once they smoke marijuana they will be interesting as well. Others comprise of the television networks, jewelry, as well as clothing.

 

In conclusion, there exist many reasons as to why teenagers are increasingly using pot today. These reasons range from peer pressure, curiosity, to relieving stressful condition. Most drug use commences in the preteen as well as teenage years, years which are most crucial in their maturation process. During these years, most teenagers are faced with intricate issues of discovering their self-identity, along with their sexual roles, learning to deal with authority, becoming independent and searching for life goals that would give significance to life. Drugs such as marijuana are readily accessible and teenagers are curious as well as venerable, and there is also peer pressure to experiment with them, and break away from issues that affect them The use, as well as the reasons of marijuana use by teenagers, is more often than not the result of an amalgamation of several factors such as mental, economical, and social problems. Drugs addiction amongst teenagers usually lead to a depressed life some of whom end up committing suicide.

 

Works Cited

 

Bestor, Sheri L. M. Substance Abuse: The Ultimate Teen Guide. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2013. Print[A1] .

 

Butts, Jeffrey A, and John Roman. Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse. Washington, D.C: Urban Institute Press, 2004. Print.[A2]

 

Califano, Joseph A. High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It. New York: PublicAffairs[A3] , 2008. Print.

 

Golden, Robert N, Fred L. Peterson, and John Haley. The Truth About Drugs. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2009. Print.[A4]

 

Hyde, Margaret O, and John F. Setaro. Drugs 101: An Overview for Teens. Brookfield, Conn: Twenty-First Century Books, 2003. Print.

 

Monti, Peter. Adolescents, Alcohol, and Substance Abuse: Reaching Teens Through Brief Interventions. New York: Guilford Publications, 2012. Print.

 

Nelson, David E. Teen Drug Abuse. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.

 

Sheff, David. Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Internet resource.