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Gabriel Ordonez Professor Raybould-Rodgers English 514 14 July, 2011 Reasons under Cannabis According to Tara Parker Pope, 40 percent of high school student have tried marihuana. This statistics come from a survey of 4097 high school student of the state of Connecticut. Another report from MTF (Monitoring the future) reported that, in colleges, almost 50 percent of the U.S. college students reported using marijuana at least once and 19.7 percent of them were current users of the drug. The marihuana is a drug that comes from the cannabis plant and it is used as a recreational drug and a medical drug. Cannabis, better known as marihuana, is one of the most common drugs used by student and, according to the UNs World Drug Report, cannabis is the worlds most popular illicit drug and it remains the most widely consumed drug worldwide with a global annual use estimated between 2.9% and 4.3% of the population aged 15-64. The reasons why so any student use marihuana will vary from case to case, but it is important to understand what drives so many students to use such drug and what are the long and short term effects of cannabis in humans and the consequence. First of all, the main reason why students opt to use marihuana as a recreational drug is because of curiosity and experimentation. They want to know how it feels to be high or under the influence of the drug. These kids might feel like they live a boring life or feel some kind of emptiness inside. They hear their friends talking about how much fun they have while they were under the influence of marihuana and the curiosity drives them to try the drug. These students feel pressure from their friends who encourage them to try the drug and this kind of pressure

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usually starts at parties and any place where teens hang out. They want to fit in with the rest so they try the weed. A teenager girl named Destanie posted on the web site Narconon.com so i know better than to do them, but my friends are pressuring me to do them. One of the only people that I am close to (which is my boyfriend) is telling me to not do them. I am almost 15 and I have started to realize addiction runs in my family, mainly just drinking but drugs too. I drink already and I love it. I have recently started smoking, cigarettes and weed. All my friends do it and a majority of my school does it, so I tried it and now I love it. This teenager started using weed (Another term for cannabis or marihuana) because all her friends were using it and she wanted to fit in. She was being pressured by her friend and finally gave in. Another reason why students decide to use drugs like marihuana is because they are victims of domestic violence, victim of other problem in the household, or in life in general. Many kids who feel they live in a very hostile environment at home and start using drugs like marihuana because they see the drug as a way to escape from their troubled life. Amy Hoover says in her article Cause of Drug Addiction that [people] turn to drug use to cope with problems in their real lives. Whether it is past abuse, school problems, work problems or relationship issues, drug use can help a person temporarily escape the realities of his/her life. In spite of the fact that these students know that the effects of drug will wear off and reality will come back, the temporary feeling of relaxation and comfort is enough reason to use it. If a family member is an addict, drug addiction becomes more acceptable to the student. Destanie mentioned on her post that her mother has been using drug since she was 17 years old and this fact probably help Destanie see drug as more acceptable. One of the most worrying effects of marihuana is its gateway effect. The gateway model was developed to explain a number of statistical sets that showed a correlation between the use

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of marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco, and the use of so-called harder drugs (heroin, cocaine, LSD, etc.) in adolescents. (Brooks Wilhelm, 2006). According to studies, one of the effects of marihuana is it might lead user to use harder drug. The studies also show a relationship between alcohol and marihuana. Drug addiction, generally, does not start with drugs like cocaine or heroin but with marihuana. Wilhelm explains that a study in New Zealand showed that out of 1265 teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15 and 21, less than 1 percent use a hard drug before they used marihuana and those who were using the drug more than 50 times a year were more likely to move on to use harder drugs. All this evidence provided indicates that the gateway effect of marihuana is very likely to happen. Another effect of marijuana is that it can damage to a persons nervous system and brain. But, before talking about the effects of marijuana in our brains, it is important to talk about cannabinoids receptors in our brains. According to Paul M. Gahlinger, in 1992, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem discovered a nerve receptor in our brains that is specific for cannabinoids, the main chemical and psychoactive compound found in cannabis plants. These receptors are common in our brain and they are mainly found in our cerebellum, our basal ganglia, and our hippocampus. This last one, according to Gahlinger, is where many scientists believe that memories and the ability to learn new things are stored. Studies in Hebrew University have shown that THC, a kind of cannabinoid, suppresses the activity of hippocampus cells, hindering their ability to store memory and to learn temporally. This means that if a student is using marijuana while he or she is in school, this student will have problem learning things or remembering what he already learned. Other problems caused by marijuana are risk of bronchitis, increased heart rates, blood pressure and depression of the immune system. Mahmoud A. Elsohly states in his book

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Marijuana and the Cannabinoids that despite that marijuana is not a very toxic drug (the amount of marijuana required to die from an overdose is 40,000 times bigger than what a regular marijuana user consumes), the drug damages# the immune system cells and it decreases the resistance towards bacteria. In addition, he also explains that marijuana is associated with cardiovascular problems, this includes increased heart rate, supine blood pressure (blood pressure when lying back), and orthostatic hypotension (when blood pressure falls rapidly after standing up or stretching). Lung problems are also assonated with marijuana, especially the increase symptoms of bronchitis. When someone uses cannabis, it is likely that he or she might end up with poor lung function. Continuing with the study, Elsohly add that marijuana smoking may predispose individuals to pulmonary infections. When the effects of marijuana in the immune system and the respiratory system are combines, the result is suppression of cellimmunity by THC placing marijuana users at risk to inflection and cancer. Destanie is just one of the many stories of teenagers that use marihuana. She is great evidence that friends can lead someone into the wrong direction. She shows how a parent could influence the behavior of his or her child and that curiosity could be a bad influence of teens. Destanie, as many other kids in high school and college, started using drugs to be able to fit in the society where most students think that using drugs is acceptable. She is an example of someone who was influenced by the wrong people. The effects of marihuana are dangerous and might lead young teens to become addicted to hard drug if the addiction to weed is not treated. Marihuana will damage their brain to the point where they will have learning and memory problem.

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Cited Work Destanie. "Stories on Drug Addiction - About Us | Drug Addiction Stories & Info." Drug Addiction Stories | Quality Stories on Drug Addiction Blog Articles. Narconnon Rehab. Web. 14 July 2011. ElSohly, Mahmoud. Marijuana and the cannabinoids. New Jersey. Humana Press Inc. Print Gahlinger, Paul. Illegal drugs: a complete guide to their history, chemistry, use and New York. Penguin Group. January 2004. Print Parker-pope, Tara. "Marijuana Use in High School Students - NYTimes.com." Health Wellness - Well Blog - NYTimes.com. New York Times. Web. 14 July 2011. Wilhelm, Brooks. The Marijuana Gateway Effect. Health Psych Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt University. 2006. Web. 14 July 2011. World Drug Report 2010. Rep. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010.UNODC. Web. 14 July 2011. and abuse. 2007.