Marijuana Facts & Fiction: Anti-Marijuana Video Educational

Marijuana Facts & Fiction: Anti-Marijuana Video Educational"Marijuana" - Research shows that recurrent or frequent use of marijuana suppresses the immune system, damages brain cells and decreases short-term memory, attention span and motivation. Effects of the drug range from sensory distortions, an altered sense of time, loss of short-term memory, loss of balance and difficulty in completing thought processes to anxiety, panic, hallucinations, delusions and paranoia. Marijuana affects necessary skills for safe driving—alertness, the ability to concentrate, coordination and reaction time. It also makes it difficult to judge distances and react to signals and signs on the road. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes per day. Smoking one marijuana cigarette deposits about four times as much tar into the lungs as a filtered tobacco cigarette. In all, marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals including tar and other cancer-causing agents. Marijuana today is 15 to 25 times more potent than the pot smoked 30 or 40 years ago. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, average THC (the psychoactive component in marijuana) levels rose from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 6 percent in 2002. Marijuana is called a "gateway" drug. Among marijuana's most harmful consequences is its role in leading to the use of other, harder drugs. Long-term studies of students who use drugs show that very few young people use other illegal drugs without first trying marijuana. Not everyone who uses marijuana will move on to other drugs, but using marijuana sometimes lowers inhibitions about drug use and exposes users to a culture that encourages experimentation and use of other drugs. Marijuana users are two to five times more likely to go on to use harder drugs. Marijuana is not accepted as a medicine by the U.S. government, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Medical Association or the U.S. Supreme Court. Medical science is willing to approve, after testing, even dangerous drugs if they've been shown to be helpful to the sick, but to quote the FDA, "While there are no proven benefits to smoked marijuana use, there are many short and long term risks associated with marijuana use." Join these amazing kids who have taken the initiative to speak up about marijuana to help others avoid falling prey to the drug culture. Learn how to separate fact from fiction when it comes to so-called medical marijuana. Understand who is behind the drug legalization movement and how to refuse and fight attempts by these groups to normalize marijuana use. After watching this broadcast, you will recognize the dangers that marijuana poses as a highly addictive drug and as a gateway to harder drugs, exposing a drug culture that claims far too many. Part Two-Program Objectives: Explore common theories, perceptions and misconceptions teens have about marijuana in reference to its addictive properties, its link to harder drugs, its increased potency and its mischaracterization as a natural herb. Identify the effects marijuana has on the body and compare marijuana and cigarettes in reference to chemical toxins. Raise awareness of drug normalization and desensitization by the drug culture under the guise of medical marijuana. Public Domain Video.