Here are some facts to consider about marijuana addiction.

Marijuana is the most used illegal drug in the United States. Nearly 69 million Americans over the age of 12 have tried marijuana at least once.

Marijuana is California’s largest cash crop.

Today’s marijuana is 10 to 15 times stronger than it was in the 60’s

Reaction time for motor skills, such as driving is reduced by 41% after smoking 1 joint and is reduced 63% after smoking 2 joints.

There have been over 7,000 published scientific and medical studies documenting the damage that marijuana poses. Not one study has shown marijuana to be safe.

Data has shown that people high on marijuana show the same lack of coordination on standard “drunk driver” tests as do people who have had to much to drink.

The daily use of 1 to 3 marijuana joints can produce the same lung damage and potential cancer risk as smoking five times as many cigarettes.

Marijuana is the second most common drug, after alcohol, present in the blood stream of non-fatally and fatally injured persons.

Among teens 12 to 17, the average age of first trying marijuana was 14 years old.

A yearly survey of students in grades 8 to 12 shows that 23% of 8th graders have tried marijuana at least once and by tenth grade, 21% are “current” users. Among 12th graders, nearly 50% have tried marijuana at least once, and about 24% were current users.

Marijuana is a complex material containing 421 chemicals, 60 of which are only found in marijuana

33.6% of students listed to have used marijuana in the last year and 20% were listed to have used in the last month.

75% of drug-related criminal charges are connected to marijuana.

65% of people arrested for marijuana related crimes are for simple possession.

Approximately 50,000 Canadians are arrested each year for marijuana related crimes.

600,000 Canadians have a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana.

Estimates put the value of the marijuana industry to the British Columbia Economy at anywhere between $2 billion and $10 billion, making it one of British Colombia’s top three industries.

For those who attend high school and college and are in need of marijuana rehabilitation, it is vital that you seek help for your drug addiction as smoking weed is detrimental to studying.

Studies have shown that students who smoke marijuana are prone to get lower grades and are less likely to graduate from any learning institutions as compared to nonsmoking students. Also, they studied students who smoke weed before taking the law school admission test and compared them against those who didn’t smoke. In one study, researchers compared marijuana smoking and nonsmoking scores on standardized tests of mathematical and verbal skills. The study showed that all of the students had scored equally well in fourth grade but the smokers’ scores were significantly lower in twelfth grade than the nonsmokers’ scores were.

On college campuses, researchers have shown that some cases of anxiety, depression and personality disturbances were associated with marijuana use. The research clearly indicated that marijuana use has the potential to cause troubles in daily life or make a person’s existing tribulations worse. Because marijuana affects the ability to learn and remember information, it seems the more a person uses marijuana the more he or she is likely to fall behind in amassing intellectual, job, or social skills. Moreover, research has shown that marijuana’s unfavorable impact on memory and learning can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of smoking weed wears off. In some patients who attend marijuana rehabilitation centers, the effects of smoking marijuana last long into the patient’s recovery.

In a recent study of over a hundred college students, researchers found that among heavy users of marijuana, those who smoked weed almost every day for a month, critical skills related to attention, memory, and learning were significantly impaired, even after they had not used the drug for at least 24 hours. The heavy marijuana users in the study had more difficulty sustaining and focusing  their attention and in registering, organizing, and using information than did the study participants who had used marijuana no more than 3 of the previous 30 days. As a result, those who smoke marijuana once daily may be functioning at a reduced academic level all of the time. More recently, the same researchers showed that a collection of long-term heavy marijuana users’ ability to recall words from a list was impaired for one week following the termination of marijuana use, but after four weeks, their memory returned to normal. An implication of this finding is that even after long-term heavy marijuana use, if an individual quits smoke weed and practices marijuana rehab then some cognitive abilities may be recovered over time.

Also in other studies dealing with employment performance and is marijuana addictive it was shown that workers who smoke marijuana are more likely than their co-workers to have problems on the job. Researchers associated workers’ marijuana smoking with increased accidents, absences, tardiness, workers’ compensation claims, and job retention. Another study among municipal workers found that employees who smoked marijuana on or off the job reported more withdrawal behaviors such as leaving work without permission, daydreaming, spending work time on personal matters, and shirking tasks which then adversely affected efficiency and drive.

Lately, scientists have been looking into the long term effects about smoking weed. For those who are considering marijuana rehabilitation, it is always best to get as much information about your addiction as possible.

Recently, as accounted in a study comparing smoking cessation in adults who smoked both tobacco and marijuana with those who smoked only tobacco, scientists found that the relationship between marijuana use and continued smoking was particularly strong in those who smoked marijuana daily at the time of the original interview,  thirteen years prior to the follow up interview.

In a study of close to 500 individuals, they found that people who smoked marijuana frequently but do not smoke tobacco have more health problems and miss more days of work than nonsmokers do. They also discovered that many of the extra sick days used by the marijuana smokers in the study were for respiratory illnesses.

The key to conquering any addiction, and to find your way to marijuana rehab is to understand just what all those years of drug abuse might have done to your body.

It seems that cancer of the respiratory tract and lungs may also be advanced by marijuana smoke. A study comparing cancer patients and an equal amount of healthy individuals produced strong substantiation that smoking marijuana increases the likelihood of developing cancer of the neck, and that the more marijuana that someone smoked, the increased chance of developing cancer as statistical analysis of the information suggested that marijuana smoking doubled or tripled the danger of getting these cancers.

For those who are only part-time smokers, it seems even infrequent marijuana use can cause burning and stinging of the mouth and throat. The study showed that people that people who smoked weed regularly end up with the same respiratory problems of tobacco smokers Side effects were a daily cough and phlegm production, a heightened risk of lung infections, more frequent acute chest infections, a heightened risk of lung infections, and a greater propensity toward obstructed airways.

Some adverse health effects caused by marijuana may occur because THC impairs the immune system’s ability to fight off infectious diseases and cancer. In laboratory experiments that exposed animal and human cells to THC or other marijuana ingredients, the normal disease-preventing reactions of many of the key types of immune cells were inhibited. In other studies, mice exposed to THC or related substances were more likely than unexposed mice to develop bacterial infections and tumors.

Marijuana smoking has the potential to advance cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract because it contains irritants and carcinogens. One reason is that smoke from marijuana contains up to 75 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke.  Marijuana also produces high levels of an enzyme that converts certain hydrocarbons into their carcinogenic type and these levels may speed up the changes that ultimately produce malignant cells. Weed smokers usually inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than tobacco smokers do as this elevates the lungs’ exposure to carcinogenic smoke. These facts suggest that, pack for sack, smoking weed may increase the risk of cancer more than tobacco does.

In one study, the results showed  has that a person’s risk of heart attack during the first hour after smoking marijuana is four times their usual risk. The scientists  suggest that a heart attack might happen because marijuana raises blood pressure and heart rate and reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood.

So far this study has not been duplicated and the results are still inconclusive.