AHS Views

Marijuana, and whether or not to legalize it, has been in the news quite a bit lately. And, even though a lot of its advocates will tell you that it isn’t addictive, smoking marijuana does wind up sending a boat load of people to drug rehab. Statistically speaking, there are roughly 300,000 people that check into drug rehab for marijuana addiction each and every year.

You see, the thing about marijuana that most people don’t know, or take into account, is that it can easily be considered a “gateway drug”. This means that once you open the marijuana door, it’s a lot easier to open the door to harder drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, to name a few.
If you want the cold hard facts on this, take a look at this:
•    About 62% of adults 26 or older, who use marijuana before they the age of 16, end up hooked on cocaine
•    Over 53% of get hooked on prescription drugs

With that said, it’s pretty difficult to believe that people still think marijuana is just for fun. The ideal solution for anyone you know who uses marijuana is get them into a drug rehab program, before the problem escalates.

Yesterday I wrote a post referencing an article about a 26-year-old guy who killed his girlfriend, and then tried to kill himself, because of paranoia caused by marijuana. I got quite a few comments - all of which basically said it was bull and that marijuana is totally cool and even has medical benefits. One of them even referred to companies that offer addiction help as ‘drug war parasites.’

Excuse me? I think you might want to take another look at that. And at the facts about marijuana. There are plenty of places to look for factual research on the Internet, and lots of anecdotal data. Try looking at some of the sights that aren’t pushing it. Some that present another point of view.

As for addiction help being a parasitic activity – okay, so it’s not the dealers, not the growers, not the guys with the labs, not the guys in school yards offering drugs to kids, not the criminals that rake in billions on getting people high. They’re the good guys, right? And people who try to help others get off drugs are the bad guys.

Boy, you’ve really got your head screwed on backwards. One out of every hundred Americans is in prison right now – much of it is because of drugs. More people’s lives are probably ruined because of drugs and alcohol than any other cause. Relationships are being destroyed, jobs are being lost, kids are being neglected, people are dying of overdoses, others are involved in car accidents, property is being stolen – all because of drugs. And many lives have been saved because people got addiction help.

Don’t think that the harmless little marijuana plant has nothing to do with it. Not only is some marijuana extremely potent, and it IS mixed with other substances, it also leads to taking other drugs.

Also, I’m not listening to ‘rhetorical propaganda” – I can pretty much guarantee you that I’ve had a lot more personal experience with it, and with other drugs, and with people who take them, than you have.

“Marijuana is harmless” – that’s propaganda.  Unfortunately, smoking marijuana reduces awareness, causes a disassociation with reality, and impairs social responsibility. Stop smoking it for a while – if you can – and take a look around. Find out what drugs are actually doing to our culture. Talk to one of the many thousands of people who’ve lost their loved ones or whose lives have otherwise been affected by drugs, and you may change your mind about who’s actually wearing the white hats in the drug game.

For anyone who’d like to get off drugs, find out more about addiction help services.

According to a recent news story, a 26-year-old man on marijuana stabbed his girlfriend to death in a fit of paranoia. His paranoia was attributed to his marijuana use and his failure to get addiction help.

Most people think of marijuana as a laid-back kind of drug. Just smoke and groove. But marijuana actually has pretty serious side effects for a lot of people. Psychosis, hallucinations and delusions are among them.  These are usually the result of continued use – it’s basically a toxic overdose – but I’ve known people who have experienced them the very first time they smoked it. In any case, it certainly points out why someone who’s smoking marijuana and won’t stop needs addiction help.

Another problem with marijuana is that it’s often cut with other drugs. Personally, I’ve had marijuana that made me feel physically poisoned and mentally crazy – in that case, it was because of another drug being in the joint.

Some marijuana is also specially cultivated to be much more potent than others. BC Bud, for example, grown largely in Canada and exported elsewhere. And there are others.

About 11 million people smoked marijuana last month. Is it any wonder why the population of the U.S. appears to be in a drug haze?

If you know someone smoking marijuana, or smoke it yourself, consider getting them (or yourself) to quit. You never know when a drug’s going to turn on you and, when it does, you may also do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Addiction help services can help you. 

About a month ago, Amy Winehouse was rushed to the hospital from a reaction to medication. With her record we could pretty guarantee that ‘medication’ wasn’t the cause of the problem and, according to a recent news article, we were right. It was reported today that Amy was suffering from cannabis poisoning. Maybe she thought she be safer with hash or marijuana rather than other drugs – if so, it’s unfortunate that all she’s gotten out of the addiction help she’s received - or maybe it was just a typical binge for her. In any case, it certainly does raise some questions about how dangerous, or not, marijuana and hash really are.

One such article pointed out how much you have to smoke to get to that point and they’re right - unless the hash or marijuana is laced with another drug, it’s pretty hard to overdose on them. Amy was said to have been smoking for 36 hours straight. But, you know, that’s the kind of thing a drug addict does. They’ll do things that are dangerous and wreckless. In fact, one of the major reasons people wind up on other drugs that require addiction help services to quit once they start with marijuana is just that – they’re not thinking straight and if someone offers them another drug they’ll take it.

They could take a drug they would never have considered taking had they not already been ‘under the influence.’

The article also said an unnamed source commented that Amy would need years of psychiatry and medical help to handle her drug problem. As bad as her drug problem is – that’s just not true. First of all, psychiatry’s been around for quite a while now. If it were capable of handling drug addiction (or any other problem for that matter), chances are we wouldn’t have so many people needing addiction help and fewer people would be taking prescription medication for their mental or emotional state.

Factually, the right addiction help services – full drug detox, proper drug rehab that gets the person healthy and addresses the emotional reasons they’re taking drugs (and drinking) would probably do it for Amy. While it’s true it takes longer for some than others to go through that process, really good drug addiction services for Amy shouldn’t take more than several months.

If I were her father – who seems to be primarily engineering her attempts at rehab – I would find addiction help services that would do that. Until he does, he’s going to have to live the way he’s living right now – wondering every day, I’m sure, whether his daughter will still be alive tomorrow.

More about what happens with drugs in college. Susan Smith (not her real name) grew up in a normal, loving, educated family. She was a girl scout, mom lead a troup. A great life. Then she went to college – she was going to be a social worker – which is where she started drinking, smoking marijuana, and using cocaine.  After a year and a half she got some addiction help but, although she stopped using cocaine, continue alcohol and marijuana. I would definitely say the addiction help she got was inadequate. If it had been thorough, she wouldn’t have continued with alcohol and marijuana.

Obviously, her college education didn’t quite turn out to be what she’d hoped. She now a cosmetologist, 48 years old, and is once again getting addiction help to stop using cocaine – she’s been on it again for the last six years.  Her habit cost her $200 – $300 a day.

This story has a relatively good ending, so far. She’s still alive, and she’s getting the addiction help services she needs. But, her life, I’m sure, was far different than she had planned. 

There are many people who don’t particularly worry about marijuana despite the fact that it has side effects that really change a person’s life – like being disassociated from reality – and despite the fact that it often leads to taking other drugs. However, the results of a new marijuana study released by the White House should serve as a wake-up call to make sure people using marijuana get the addiction help they need.

The study showed that the potency of marijuana is at its highest point in 30 years – much stronger than it was in the ’70s, and twice as strong as it was in 1983.

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy commented that one of the reasons baby-boomers may not worry about their kids using marijuana is that they expect it to be the same as it was in the ’70s. Not true. The report stated that young people who have used marijuana in the last year are twice as likely to be depressed as those who didn’t and that the risk of developing ‘mental problems’ is increased by 40%.

There’s also a higher risk of physical disease.

Good reasons to make sure anyone you know using marijuana gets the addiction help they need.

The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said she is worried that marijuana will become even stronger and cause addiction. That statement makes me wonder if she knows what addiction really is. While it’s true that, for the most part, quitting marijuana doesn’t cause extremely severe withdrawal symptoms like other drugs, that’s not all there is to addiction. Try to get someone who uses marijuana regularly to stop and you’ll see how difficult it actually is. There’s a reason why they want to feel that way – and those reasons are the ‘addiction’ elements that need to be handled so the person to stop.

Getting addiction help services for marijuana is more important now that ever. Taking marijuana use lightly could be a very big mistake.

Contrary to what many marijuana advocates will tell you, smoking marijuana sends a lot of people to drug rehab. In fact, about 300,000 people check into drug rehab for marijuana addiction every year.

On top of being addictive in itself, there’s no doubt that marijuana is a gateway drug: About 62% of adults 26 or older who use marijuana before they the age of 16 end up hooked on cocaine, and over 53% of get hooked on prescription drugs, according to White House Drug Policy report..
 
With statistics like that, it’s hard to believe that people still think marijuana is just light recreation. I just read an article about a teacher in the U.K. who gave her kids marijuana so they wouldn’t get into harder drugs. Bad move. The best thing to do with people who smoke marijuana is get them into a drug rehab program, before the problem escalates.

The dangers associated with marijuana have been debated for years. Some say it’s the least harmful of illegal drugs and in California it is even legally prescribed for people with a variety of conditions including anxiety, cancer and multiple sclerosis. But a recent study may cause medical marijuana users as well as those who abuse it to head straight for drug rehab. 

The study, conducted by the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University and reported in Lancet (registration required, but it’s free, and they also have a podcast for the study, or read an article about it), or  showed that marijuana may increase the risk of psychosis by 40 percent. Researchers analyzed 35 studies that tracked tens of thousands of people for one to 27 years to examine the relationship between marijuana use and psychosis, depression, anxiety, delusions and a number of other conditions. In addition to the alarming data on the risk of psychosis for anyone using the drug, researchers found that, for heavy users, the risk of jumps to 200 percent.
 
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug because of its high potential for abuse. Also, per the DEA, it has no currently accepted medical use.

This study should end the debate. Let’s hope people take it to heart, get off the drug, and get into a successful drug rehab program.

A year ago David Fetterer’s life was plunging further and further into desperation as a result of his marijuana addiction. But instead of giving up and losing his wife and children, he cheeked into a drug rehab center and beat his addiction. Now he is one of five Pennsylvanians who are being honored for turning their lives around.
Fetterer said he owned up to the realization he had a problem and entered a drug rehab program in July last year. It was the first time he had attempted to quit his abuse. He said he hopes others who are in a similar situation will admit they have to make a change in their life and make the decision to enter a drug rehab program.

“David is on the road to being debt-free in a marriage with honesty and trust in a drug-free environment,” commissioners Dave Cyphert, Donna Hartle and Donna Oberlander said. “He is truly a success story.”

Source: www.thederrick.com

The illegal drug market has never been a trusted source for safe products of course, but recent reports of some contaminated marijuana in England have had many health officials and drug users worried in recent months.

Apparently, there have been reports of what is being called “grit weed”, which has tiny glass beads sprayed on it with glue to appear better and weigh more (increasing the price).

Pro-marijuana sites and users’ message boards are filled with posts of people confirming these reports, which have spread throughout the UK. “It seems to be being done on an industrial scale,” said Harry Shapiro of Drugscope, which is a major charity in the UK.

Drugscope also issued a warning about the substance, stating, “We want to make people aware of it from a public health point of view. If you are smoking this stuff and taking it into your lungs it’s not good news.”

Because the market is driven by basic supply and demand principles, money is the root of the underground trade industry. The concern for adverse health effects doesn’t even come into play when the sellers can get top dollar for a dangerous product.

In a similar vein, but a different drug in the U.S., heroin suppliers had mixed in amounts of the opiate Fentanyl, which is much stronger than morphine. The idea was to save money on the amount of heroin, while increasing potency and using other powder fillers instead. The result was a serious outbreak in overdose deaths from the Midwest to the East Coast.

If enough glass from the grit weed were ingested into the lungs of a marijuana user, the result could be very hazardous and even deadly over a period of time if use continued.

Article by Eric

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