Marijuana Truths
Source: CASP Center for Drug Abuse Prevention:  
SAMHSA Prevention Alert, May 30, 2003


  • Marijuana can cause severe anxiety, psychotic behavior,
    depression, and may, in people disposed to the illness, trigger or
    worsen schizophrenia.


  • More teens smoke marijuana for the first time in June and July than
    any other time of the year. Summer’s unsupervised time is the
    likely reason.


  • Within 2 weeks to 3 months of quitting smoking tobacco or
    marijuana, lung function improves 30 percent. Within 9 months,
    lungs are better able to fight infection. After five years, risk of lung
    cancer is cut in half. After 10 years, lung cancer risk is equivalent to
    someone who never smoked.


  • Marijuana can be addictive. More youth ages 12 to 17 (60 percent
    in 1999) enter substance abuse treatment for marijuana use than
    all other drug abuse combined, including alcohol.


  • Admission for drug treatment for marijuana dependence for youth
    ages 12 to 17 increased 43 percent from 1994 to 1999. More than
    half (57 percent) of these youth had used marijuana before the age
    of 14.


  • There are almost one million listings for “marijuana” on Internet
    search engines, but about 90 percent of them are pro-legalization
    or glorify marijuana use.


  • There is a legal extract of marijuana’s THC for cancer sufferers. It’s
    a pill called Merinol and requires a doctor’s prescription. However,
    there are no studies which indicate smoking any substance is
    good for the lungs or health in general. In short, smoking
    marijuana for health benefits is a contradiction in terms.


  • A greater percentage of White youth smoke marijuana than Black
    youth or Hispanics. (American Indian youth have the highest rate of
    marijuana use of all ethnic groups.)


  • Forty-five percent of reckless drivers not impaired by alcohol tested
    positive for marijuana. Illegal drugs are used by 10 to 22 percent of
    drivers involved in crashes.


  • The risk of using cocaine is 104 times greater for those who have
    tried marijuana   than for those who haven’t.


  • The average marijuana smoker spends $816 a year on his habit.


  • Marijuana is the number one cash crop in poor areas of Kentucky,
    Tennessee, and West Virginia—more than 40 percent of the
    nationwide total.


  • The average THC content of marijuana today is about 5 percent,
    more than twice the potency of the average marijuana in the sixties.
    It is not uncommon to find marijuana with 10 times the THC
    potency of twenty years ago. Hash oil can be found to have 55
    percent THC content.
MARIJUANA TRUTHS
Examples of how marijuana may appear.