Pot Essay, Research Paper
The Innocent Drug
All people are searching for a way to block out reality or a way to fit in somehow. The way some people deal with there problems in life is by using drugs. It seems that today many people, mainly teenagers, have turned to a drug they call pot. Although marijuana has been a large part of our society for years there are many more reasons why kids use it today more then ever. Some reasons for using pot have changed with time and some have not.
One of the most obvious reasons I can think of is the fact that their parents might have used it. This is because my generation of children have parents of the baby-boomer generation. Our folks grew up in the sixties where pot smoking was an extremely common occurrence and very widely excepted. With parents of such a strong background in the sixties the influence is bound to carry over to the children. From the time we are small , we enjoy and respect our parents . This carries over into the teenage years, and when given the wrong messages we may start to feel that it is ‘ more adult’ to be using drugs. Some kids could also feel that it is very normal and maybe even a good thing to do.
Everyone knows that when kids become teenagers they priorities turn from loving their parents to pleasing and fitting in with their friends. Even though some parents may use pot most don’t. It seems more common that kids get the idea to use this drug from often times from their friends. They not only get the idea to use drugs from their friends but they feel that they have to or they will be not be socially accepted. And many kids have a very good arguments as to why smoking pot is not big deal.
A very important fact that seems to stick out in the minds of adolescents is the fact that there is not much documented evidence of the bad side effects of smoking the drug. Unlike alcohol there is no evidence that marijuana causes brain damage or anything permanent. It seems to only impair you for a short time. How could something that gives you a feeling of euphoria and have no long term medical side effects be bad? This is what many kids of today can not figure out. Not only does the drug have not long term medial effects it is not physically addictive. This means that you can use pot for extended periods of time and then stop and not get physically sick form it, but it does have some psychological repercussions.
Most adolents get there information not from school or there parents but from television. This is where lots of statistics about marijuana use come from and how it effects kids
. But kids of today don’t really watch the news too often. They watch movies and television shows. Many of these tend go glorify the use of pot and make it seem like a very playful and just fun thing to do. So many movies out today are like this.