Marijuana addiction in Collier County and Naples Florida is on the rise Marijuana continues to increase throughout the country. My observation that anxiety levels in developing countries continue to rise as competing demands dominate our lives. Easy substances like alcohol and marijuana provide the illusion of relief. Marijuana is the most commonly abused illicit drug in the United States. Marijuana has some medicinal benefits to the sick and dying. Its effect in improving appetite in severely physically wasted patients from cancer was the incentive to produce high grade oral marijuana to alleviate this suffering. However the long term effects of marijuana is what is the most worrisome.
Marijuana's damage to short-term memory seems to occur because THC alters the way in which information is processed by the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for memory formation. In one study, researchers compared marijuana smoking and nonsmoking 12th-graders' scores on standardized tests of verbal and mathematical skills. Although all of the students had scored equally well in 4th grade, those who were heavy marijuana smokers, i.e., those who used marijuana seven or more times per week, scored significantly lower in 12th grade than nonsmokers. Another study of 129 college students found that among heavy users of marijuana critical skills related to attention, memory, and learning were significantly impaired, even after they had not used the drug for at least 24 hours.
Here are more worrisome statistics
1. In 2000, over 3 million youths aged 12 to 17 used marijuana at least once during the past year.
2. White youths were more likely to use marijuana than Hispanic, black, or Asian youths.
3. Youths with an average grade of D or below were more than 4 times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as youths who reported an average grade of A.
4. Marijuana blunts are cigars with tobacco replaced with marijuana. Blunt use is defined as smoking part or all of a cigar with marijuana in it.
5. Based on SAMHSA's 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 6.8% (1.7 million) youth aged 12 to 17 used marijuana in the past month and 3.5% (891,000) smoked "blunts" (cigars with marijuana in them) in the past month.
6. In 2005, about half (52%) of past month marijuana users aged 12 to 17 also used blunts in the past month with males more likely than females to have smoked blunts (55.6% vs. 47.5%).
7. Among past month marijuana using youths, rates of smoking blunts in the past month were highest in the Northeast (62.5%) and the South (54.4%) than in the Midwest (48.3%) and West (43.1%).
8. Based on SAMHSA's 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the percentages of youths engaging in delinquent behaviors rose with increasing frequency of marijuana use.
9. In 2002, more than 5 million youths engaged in serious fighting at school or work and almost 4 million took part in a group-against-group fight in the past year.
10. Over 40% of those who used marijuana 300 or more days in the past year reported that they also took part in serious fighting at school or work (42%) or in a group-against-group fight (41%) in the past year.
11. Over half (57%) of those who used marijuana 300 or more days in the past year reported that they also sold illegal drugs
So why do we worry about marijuana so much is because those children with an onset before age 15 were an estimated 8.3 times more likely than those with an onset after age 20 to be dependent on one or more illicit drugs. Those with an onset between the ages of 15 and 20 were about 3 times more likely than those with an onset after age 20 to be dependent on one or more illicit drugs.
Marijuana is an entry drug to the more hard core use of cocaine, crack meth and heroin. Please make and appointment with Leonard Lado MD in Naples Florida. Here is a horrific video of young innocent children being taught to smoke marijuana. This video shocked the world.
Click here to watch the video
