Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Facts About Marijuana



NIDA for Teens~Marijuana is a mixture of the dried and shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the cannabis sativa plant. The mixture can be green, brown, or gray.
A bunch of leaves seem harmless, right? But think again. Marijuana has a chemical in it called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC. A lot of other chemicals are found in marijuana, too—about 400 of them, many of which could affect your health. But THC is the main psychoactive (i.e., mind altering) ingredient. In fact, marijuana’s strength or potency is related to the amount of THC it contains. The THC content of marijuana has been increasing since the 1970s. Estimates from confiscated marijuana indicated that it contains almost 10 percent THC, on average.
There are many slang terms for marijuana that vary from city to city and from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some common names are: “pot,” “grass,” “herb,” “weed,” “Mary Jane,” “reefer,” “skunk,” “boom,” “gangster,” “kif,” “chronic,” and “ganja.”
Marijuana is used in many ways. The most common method is smoking loose marijuana rolled into a cigarette called a “joint” or “nail.” Sometimes marijuana is smoked through a water pipe called a “bong.” Others smoke “blunts”—cigars hollowed out and filled with the drug. And some users brew it as tea or mix it with food.
Some people mistakenly believe that “everybody’s doing it” and use that as an excuse to start using marijuana themselves. Well, they need to check the facts, because that's just not true. According to NIDA's 2012 Monitoring the Future study, about 6.5 percent of 8th graders, 17.0 percent of 10th graders, and 22.9 percent of 12th graders had used marijuana in the month before the survey. In fact, marijuana use declined from the late 1990s through about 2007. Unfortunately, this trend appears to be reversing. Since 2007, annual, monthly, and daily marijuana use increased among 10th and 12th graders while daily use increased among 8th graders. In 2012, 6.5 percent of 12th graders reported using marijuana daily, compared to 5.1 percent in 2007.

No comments:

Post a Comment