How Does Marijuana Affect Teenagers

The Effects That Marijuana Has On Teenagers

Many teens have an experimented with illegal drugs in some point of their adolescent lives. One drug, Marijuana, “is the most common drug in the United States”, (Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ). Marijuana has several different effects on people, both physical and mental. Teenagers feel that marijuana is safer than alcohol or other drugs. However, there is research that shows otherwise.

A typical story of how marijuana can affect a teenager is the story of a teenager named Mikey. He started using marijuana at the age of 11. Since some of the people he knew used heroin and crack, he did not think that smoking marijuana was bad. He eventually started selling weed to support

Is Marijuana a safe drug for teenagers to use? "It's actually probably not that dangerous if you think about it pharmacologically in folks that are adults over 25, but among youth, it actually is hazardous, they don't know that it can affect brain development” (Dr. Richard Rosenthal). In a study conducted by Madeline Meier, a college professor at Arizona State, tested the IQ levels in students that used marijuana and IQ levels in students who did not use marijuana. The study found that the teenagers that used marijuana from teenage years through adulthood, lost 8 IQ points and the ones who did not use marijuana did not lose any points. Furthermore, a CNN article suggests that the THC levels (intoxicating chemical in marijuana tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC) in marijuana are much stronger than they were 40 years ago. “Since 1972 the average THC content of marijuana has soared from less than 1% to 3 to 4% in the 1990s, to nearly 13% today” (Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly). "The higher the THC levels, the more brain changes there are and the more there is the risk for addiction," (Krista