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The Dangers of Marijuana Use
Forms of Marijuana and their Potency
Ordinary Joint — Average THC: 3 percent
Studies have shown that, as a group, marijuana users do poorer in school and are less likely to graduate high school than non-users.
Sinsemilla — Average THC: 7.5 percent, but can range as high as 24 percent. It is made from the buds and flowering tops of the female hemp plant.
Like tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains a wide array of chemicals. One is benzopyrene, which is known to cause cancer. This substance
is present in tobacco smoke as well, but is more concentrated in marijuana smoke.
Hashish — Average THC: 3.6 percent, but can range as high as 28 percent. Hashish is the sticky resin from the flowers of the female hemp plant.
Health Hazards
Hash Oil — Average THC: 16 percent, but can range as high as 43 percent. Hash oil is a dark, sticky liquid produced from hashish. Drug dealers sometimes mix marijuana with other drugs, including PCP, Fentanyl nitrate and even embalming fluid, to increase the potency. This doctored marijuana can be deadly. It is difficult to know for sure what is in marijuana purchased on the street, since it is produced illegally.
Scientists have determined that marijuana smoke causes pre-cancerous cellular changes in the lungs. The tars in marijuana smoke have been shown to produce tumors.
Medicinal Marijuana — This is not your fa- ther’s weed. Lab tests reveal, medicinal marijuana is nearly twice as potent as illegal pot of past decades. In old-school marijuana, levels of THC — the psychoactive chemical that makes people high — were typically well below 10 percent. But in Colorado’s legal marijuana, the average THC level is 18.7 percent, and some retail pot contains 30 percent THC or more, according to research.
Research does not support theidea that marijuana use is harmless. This is particularly true in
the case of young people.
Addiction
Marijuana interferes with the ability to learn and retain information. A study of college students found that heavy users of marijuana had impaired attention, memory and learning skills for up to 24 hours after use.
Learning
Another study showed that for up to a week after smoking, users had an impaired ability to recall words from a list. Memory returned to normal within four weeks.
While not all marijuana users progress to other illegal drugs, they are much more likely
to try other drugs than non-users. It is not well understood why this is the case. Using marijuana may condition a person to be more comfortable with the idea of taking illegal drugs. It may also be that marijuana use produces changes in the brain that predisposes a person to abuse other drugs.
A study at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine provided evidence that exposure of young rats to the active ingredient in marijuana made them consume larger amounts of heroin when fully grown.
While marijuana is not as addictive as a drug such as heroin, the potential for addiction is real, perhaps more so than most people realize.
There is not a pronounced physical withdrawal from marijuana, but the high from THC can be psychologically addictive. Some users compulsively use the drug even though they wish to stop. Other aspects of the person’s life (school, career, family) may suffer as a result. Treatment programs and support groups such as Marijuana Anonymous are available in these cases.
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