HOW DOES MARIJUANA AFFECT THE BRAIN?

I have smoked pot for almost two years now. I smoked pot every day for a year straight, and that sucked, for I didn't feel very healthy, I felt blurred, unfocused, and almost too passive about everything. However, once I started cutting down the rate that I smoked it, pot became enjoyable again. I'll only partake in it on weekends, just like alcohol. Also, I stopped for three weeks straight, immediately after that whole year of overconsumption, and did not feel any withdrawl affects. However, I had also been smoking ciggarettes during this time, so when I tried to stop smoking ciggarettes, I would get cranky, unfocused, and extremely stressed out and negative. If ANY of you are arguing For or Against marijuana consider wether you smoke tobacco or not, that might have a large factor on addiction and opinion. My short term memory is only temporarly affected when I'm high, but that just causes me to not focus on little things, like keychains and coffee mugs. I can still remember most of where I was and what I did the whole day, just not the conversations specifically. When I'm sober, I'm back to myself (not saying I don't like who I am when Im high). Also, I'm not pulling the "Im still a genius card", on the contrary, I've been getting progressively worse grades since grade 6, usually going down 5 to 10 percent every year until the end of grade 12. I only started smoking pot at the end of grade 11. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Marijuana is good in regulated ammounts, like almost anything on this planet. It has proven medicinal values(such as stopping glaucoma, relieving pain for cancer patients and those with arthritis, holding off MS, and increased eyesight quality and metabolism) (I dont have cites to this information, except for a documentary called "The Union", and various websites that dictate the actual process of the studies, to reveal any bias), it's a fun recreational drug if you don't create a dependency for it to solve your problems, and creates an alternate state of thinking, and creating opinions, which might be good for those who are hypocritical and closed minded. There's alternate ways to avoid obvious health problems, such as baking it into food, or using a vaporiser, which take the lung problem dangers away. It can connect people and dissolve the clique barrier in high school, and can give some people inspiration or creativity. Yes, there's more of a risk for smoking it due to not knowing the contents of it, but you can always grow your own organically. The key is descretion and the obvious option of choosing wether to ingest it or not. Give people the choice, but control it, set an age, and grow it under proper conditions without any additives. It's basically a vice (not a very harmful one at that) that people should have the choice to use, because if we live in a society that feels we are not responsible enough to make our own decisions and take care of ourselves, we are nothing more than sheep. Stop the senseless and overblown debate that is weed and just legalize it.

I commend you for realizing what Pot may have potentially done to you,and you are absosolutely right.if i can make a difference in your life i will tell you STOP PLEASE, dont smoke pot any more.I have copied my posting so you can see my experience and how pot has damaged my son....good luck....this is a stranger who is proud of you

I am a middle aged woman and i was pot smoker back in my days when pot was in its natural estate and to grown in labs like it is now full of chemicals that are very harmful for the brain. I have been struggling with my son for the past several years and have seen how pot has been eating away from his gift abilities and has crippled him until he developed Bipolar Disorder which now rules his life and he is not able to accept.You young people think this is funny, but is not!The brain is a very precious thing and if you abuse it it will turn on you eventually, the brain is what makes us human.When you stop pot you will never accomplish your full potential, i dint care how much you try to lie to your self, I have seen it over and over again.Yes given! pot does not make everyone psychotic, but unfortunately it does to some .So if you have a friend that gets annoyed when he or she smokes pot, do them a favor and stop them, talked to them and you will potentially save their life.....The hardest thing for a parent like me, is to see your child and not be able to do anything about it

That comment is so incredibly full of shit, that it's actually funny. Like, "Ha ha, funny joke" funny.

"weed is addictive u cant say its not cuz none of u can quit"

First of all, I CAN say it's not, thank you.
Secondly, how would you know?
Have you talked to, literally, every marijuana user on the face of the earth? No, you haven't, because you've never talked to me. I have never met a marijuana user who physically cannot quit smoking ganja. Never. Ever. Ever. EVER.

I CAN quit smoking marijuana. I've done it before plenty of times for different reasons ranging from work to family.

"Well if you can quit, why don't you then!? HMM??"

Because I don't fucking want to! Why would I stop doing something that makes me happy just to prove to you that it's not addictive?

That's like saying "Duhr! You're addicted to having sex with your girlfriend!"
Someone rational would be like "Um, no I'm not."
"Well then why don't you stop having sex with her forever!?"
"Um, because I LIKE to have sex with my girlfriend?"

And even if I, or another marijuana smoker, DID quit smoking marijuana for, let's say 6 months, just for you. You STILL wouldn't be convinced that it's not addictive because facts have no bearing on what comes out of your bullshit-propagating mouth.

"the only people that would fight that weed is good for u are pot heads that have no fuckin life"

Oh, is that so?

Try saying that to Joe Rogan: A brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a brown belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, host of Fear Factor, co-host of The Man Show, prominent (and very funny) stand-up comedian, actor, and color commentator for the UFC: Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Yeah, he has no life, whatsoever.
And Joe is just one, out of many, examples.

You're an idiot!

Wow, you're really cool. You sound so smart too! Not.

Ok so i think that marijuana can be good but only to a certain extent. Yes, it does make you relaxed and sparks off your imagination and even gives you that sense of euphoria but it can all backfire if your doing too much. From past experience, I found that marijuana makes reality feel so vague and can change the ways you perceive things such as religion and school. You just don't feel the same anymore and you're tired all the time. If you're smoking every once in awhile and you're keeping up with all the priorities in life it may not be so bad but the problem is that very few people can do this and I advise those who can't to quit. You start to blow off school, friends, sports, .. for weed? Now thats bad.

Yep pot has some negitive affects, but setting the mind up tp really getting strait As in school actual has worse affects than any drug in long term us, even herion is not as bad as 13 or 14 years of public school, these people how get good grades will suffer with an inability to think for themselves some of them never obtain the ability to think for themselves. now where are all the studies on this know FACT JACK?

That teenager who has "no ambition or motivation" isn't like that BECAUSE of marijuana. That teenager most likely would've ended up like that anyway. Just like drinking doesn't make me an alcoholic. I have a few beers here and there, and I hang out, and then I won't drink for weeks. Some people are genetically predisposed to be an alcoholic, some aren't.
Would you rather he had chosen alcohol instead of marijuana? Or perhaps some other hard drug like methamphetamine or heroin? Marijuana IS a safer alternative, and that's a fact.
To say that users, like myself, who know how to apply marijuana consumption to everyday life with moderation and responsibility CAN'T consume marijuana because some kid doesn't know how to deal with it's effects, is ridiculous. THAT is selfish and disingenuous, my friend.
If my little brother was just getting high all the time and not doing his school work or helping out around the house, we would have a problem, and we would fix that problem by removing whatever was making him irresponsible, if it was the marijuana, we'd remove it. But if he was getting high all the time, but also being responsible about his school work, family life, etc. then no, we wouldn't have a problem. His lack of responsibility would be the problem, not his marijuana consumption. And the fact is, marijuana doesn't make you irresponsible. Irresponsible people are going to be irresponsible. To point the finger at some happy little herb and say "it made me do it!" is, you guessed it, IRRESPONSIBLE.
The irony of lecturing about being 'irresponsible' and then blaming some harmless little flower for some kid's irresponsibility is hilarious. Why don't you TEACH that kid to TAKE responsibility for his/her own actions and stop propagating misinformation about this plant and blaming the irresponsibility on it. THAT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

In the end, we come to the conclusion that no human being on this planet has the right to tell another human being that there is a certain state of mind that he/she is not allowed to experience. (because remember, marijuana, along with most other drugs, have effects on the mind)
You see, I believe in REAL freedom. I believe in personal and individual freedom and liberty. I know that's an uncomfortable area for you right-wingers out there, but hear me out when I say that there is absolutely NOTHING free about incarcerating people who wish to experience a temporarily different state of mind, not to mention using completely NATURAL herbs and flowers that can be grown in our backyards.
That's called fascism, not freedom, and it's quite prominent in today's America, unfortunately.

There's a great quote from a great hero of mine. It goes:

"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, who I fuck, or what I take into my body as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet? And for those of you out there who're having a little moral dilemma in your head about how to answer that question, I'll answer it for you - none of your fucking business. Take that to the bank, cash it, and go fucking on a vacation out of my life."
-Bill Hicks

and alcohol can just kill... which would you rather a bunch of drop out F grades doing whilst their skipping lessons?

Eric said, "My grades have stayed the same, memory the same, my personalality has not changed, absolutly nothing."

My question is, why do it then? Just curious.

im writing a junior research paperon legalization as well. ive been smoking weed for a good 3 years im a junior in high school. i was in a state of depression to a point where i never wanted to get out of bed yet alone deal with people. weed HELPED me deal with all the small problems i deal with and kept me from doing something stupid like hurting myself. everyone is entitled to there own opinion.

I smoked pot a few times. I never liked it, but it was around and I didn't pass it up on some of the occasions that I encountered. I was working for the Department of Defense and smoked pot again. There was no drug testing, so I was not overly concerned. But, I had lied on my clearance papers and said that I had never done illegal drugs. Marijuana is illegal in the United States, and I knew that, and I lied. I had also tried a few other illegal drugs a few times. It always bothered me that I had lied about doing drugs, and at a critical point in my life, I confessed to a security officer that I had smoked pot and I never went back to that company to work again. My supervisor said that pot was okay. I said that it wasn't okay. That was 14 years ago. I have been raped, assaulted, robbed, and drugged ever since I reported myself. Sometimes it is so bad that I think that I need to go to drugs because I can't stand the pain that I have been put through since I reported myself. I remember how I despised drugs when I was a kid. I try to hold on to what I know is good about me and I believe that I am a good person. I think when you get involved in drugs, you involve yourself with a lot of people and activity that will hurt you. My aunt and my uncle both died in the midst of drugs. They were from Latvia, immigrants to this country, beautiful people, and the were both killed. My aunt was an artist living in the Mojave desert, she made stained glass windows. She was brutally stabbed to death in her home in 2004. I do not know if she was doing drugs, she had in the past, but I would guess that she made poor choices when she chose her friends. When you do drugs, you open up the wrong doors. One of my problems was that the drugs kept following me everywhere I went and I was afraid of the drugs and the people. I ran away and the bad guys won. They are everywhere. I have found the doctors that do drugs, I have found the dentists that do drugs, I have found many professionals that do drugs, and I have been drowning in drug activity for 14 years. It got so bad that the doctors put me on social security. So, now I live in poverty regretting that I had ever had anything to do with drugs. When I was a kid, drugs were everywhere. I left it behind, but it followed me everywhere I went. They followed me from Ohio to Alabama, and back to Ohio. I did not get any sympathy or help from my family. They added to the punishment and basically think that I deserve what I get. I was a beautiful young woman with everything in the world going for me, but society has shown me what they do with someone that made the mistakes that I have made. Even the dentist that I went to fixed my beautiful smile so that my front tooth looks rotten and deformed. Society will teach you what they accept and do not accept. I was not arrested, instead they dragged me out of my house over and over again and threw me in the psychiatric wards and locked me up against my will. I spent 12 years getting locked up in psych wards since I reported myself. Good luck with you life. I hope you do not make a mistake that you are not forgiven for by society. The United States hates me.

I mean god put it on this earth... so why do ppl make it out 2 b so damn bad?