Marijuana Rehabilitation

From Channel 4.com:

Geoff, a 20-year-old undergraduate, talks about drugs, his addiction to cannabis and his frustration with the law.’I smoke about 20 cigarettes per day, smoke marijuana on a daily basis and drink very little alcohol. I take cocaine very infrequently and smoke crack very occasionally – perhaps once a year. I took ecstasy on a regular basis for about six months about a year and a half ago. I have also taken other random drugs on a couple of occasions over the past five years, including speed, ketamine, acid, opium and ‘yaba’ [methamphetamine].

‘I’ve been a heavy marijuana smoker since the age of 14, and this has always been my drug of preference, way above alcohol, given its ability to make you relax and the smaller impact it has the following day! I smoke it at home by myself and with friends and at friends’ houses.

‘I’m addicted to nicotine and I’d say that I’m psychologically addicted to cannabis. I have gone through periods of high use of more addictive substances, such as cocaine, but, thankfully not over a long enough period to result in a proper addiction. Aside from marijuana, drugs have generally been a weekend indulgence for me.

‘I take drugs as a relief from reality and boredom, in a nutshell. It seems to me they allow you to be less introspective in many ways. I personally find it quite difficult to really relax, which to be honest I find disturbing in itself. Drugs allow you to forget about any current problems that you may have. That’s not to say I’ve had dreadful events in my life which I need to ‘hide’ from, but everyone has issues.

‘I think drugs have a lot of negative side-effects, but what doesn’t? The financial one is obvious, and this can become even more serious if one gets involved with seriously addictive drugs. Come-downs are another, but a lot of this is the result of drugs being illegal – so many of them are cut. The two drugs that I would say have the worst side-effects (and which I personally believe to be the most dangerous drugs) are acid and ecstasy. One of the most appropriate statements that I have ever heard about acid (which I think also relates to ecstasy to a lesser extent) is by Robert Pirsig in his cult book Lila, where he says that acid allows you to walk through the door to an alternate reality, but most people have no idea how to walk back through.

‘Perhaps the biggest drug-related problem for me, or rather for those around me, involved being expelled from school for smoking weed. This had a very bad impact on my family. I’m not excusing my actions, but I do feel that most of the problems that occurred were caused by people’s naive views about cannabis.

‘Though I feel bad about the problems this incident caused my family, I don’t feel that I have ever directly hurt anyone as a result of my drug-taking and do not see it as something to feel guilty about.

‘I have severe problems with the drug laws. I think, without a doubt, marijuana should be legalised immediately and the government should stop wasting so much time and money on prosecuting people who have been involved with it.’

Jamie’s story

‘I started smoking resin when I was fifteen and almost immediately I became paranoid. Over the next few years, as the amount and quality of what I smoked increased so did the intensity of my symptoms. I became completely delusional, building elaborate ideas for what was happening in the world around me and began having frightening hallucinations.My schooling suffered and while I passed my GCSE’s I made numerous unsuccessful and very bizarre attempts to complete college courses. I lost all my friends due to paranoia. My relationship with my family was destroyed and I was kicked out of home. I pretty much lost everything there is to lose apart from my life and I was very close to losing that due to extraordinary stunts in cars and my habit of not eating anything.

‘Cannabis is very addictive and those that say it’s not physically addictive are totally misguided. Resin often has crap added to make you dependant. I spent many night sweating and shaking without a joint. Throwing up nothing into the toilet as I needed whatever was in the rubbish I smoked. Grass was even worse though. Upon quitting resin, I smoked only grass and when I had none it was hell. My mind would race and my heart would pound, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, the slightest sound would startle me and the dimmest light would dazzle my eyes. Needless to say, I smoked a lot to combat this.

‘The drug was the cause of my illness. Many dispute that but the chemistry is all there for the reading. The first thing I did after being diagnosed as psychotic was get on the internet and find out exactly how cannabis affects the brain. The information was there albeit filed away on obscure scientific websites. I was so angry that it was not in the public domain but at least I knew the cause and I knew I could recover.

‘If I had been aware of the dangers then I would not have smoked like I did. Cannabis had no danger in my mind, not even a hint of anything sinister. After numerous arrests due to cannabis I eventually got referred to a drug counsellor whose only qualm was that I was spending a lot of money on it! I even saw doctors during my illness that said not to worry about the cannabis and misdiagnosed me with depression. There was no knowledge out there about the risks but over the last few years the issue has become topical.

‘The government’s decision to re-grade cannabis to Class C was probably wise. A lot of time and public money was wasted on police officers having to write up kids for carrying a tenth of resin, no doubt there are more serious crimes. The problem was the way the media handled the issue. Cannabis was on the front page of every paper, all over the TV, the message being sent out was that cannabis was harmless. Now there are talks of reclassification, while this may counter act some of the positive publicity it once more places a strain on the police. I believe the only way forward is a widespread well-funded public information campaign. If kids are getting taught the risks then at least they have the chance to make the stupid choice!

‘Quitting the grass was not hard for me, I had clear evidence that it was having a profoundly bad effect and I had mind and body numbing medication to cover any withdrawal symptoms. Without either it probably would have been impossible. It’s a tricky one to quit as the desire to stop is counteracted by the belief that it is supposedly harmless but please believe me, you may never become psychotic through cannabis but you will definitely be negatively affected – use Google to search for the words cannabis and dopamine together and have a read.

‘Three years after quitting cannabis and a year and a half after coming off medication, I now live with my girlfriend in our own place. I still carry a few remnants of the illness and find some situations very difficult but I have my life and my sanity back. The world can be pretty tough and every time something goes wrong I want to roll a joint and forget about my problems but I know things could be a lot worse then they are and would be a lot worse if I smoked cannabis.

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.