Believe teen use of marijuana doesn't hurt them?

Many people think that marijuana and other drug use is harmless and even believe teen use of marijuana doesn't hurt them.  Well, that is just not the case, even casual drug use can have long term effects

Here is why.  We grew up believing that our brain tells us what to do, but actually it is what we do and our life experiences that teach our brain what to do and handle life. It begins at birth and your environment has a lot to do with what your brain tells you later in life. Our brain learns to respond to things around us and it goes back to the fight or flight concept. When your brain gets flooded with adrenaline and you fight for your life or run for your life.  

Growing up every time your parent go in a fight or yelled at you, every time you did something crazy or risky this was all implanted in your brain.  When you rode the rollercoaster and either got right back on or threw up, that too was implanted in your brain.  Doctors have scanned the brains of children of abused women and compared them to the scans of the mother, and they looked the same even though the child was not abused only the mother.  This is what your brain learns.  Your brain begins to respond to stress in ways to protect itself. 

So, you can imagine what your brain learns from the effect of drugs/alcohol and what you do while you are using drugs/alcohol.  Over a period of time while you are on drugs/alcohol your brain learns the feelings and reactions of the drugs/alcohol. It’s all about fight or flight or pleasure and pain.

Your brain reacts to fight or flight or pleasure and pain.  When this happens with drugs/alcohol, even the thought of it can trigger our brain to go into overdrive.  Don’t give your brain what you taught it to crave and you and those around you pay the price. 

There are two areas of the brain that are most effected by drugs and alcohol and they are the pleasure/pain center (Amygdala) and the area which organizes our memory (Hippocampus)

So, what happens when you take drugs or drink alcohol and your pleasure center is activated in your brain?  In the beginning your brain reacts with surprise and the pours dopamine over our brain, and it makes us feel good. Our brain starts learning if I tell the body to do this, I get that and starts to crave it.  Remember when you had your first beer and got a buzz, and next time your brain said I want more of that feeling.  After a few times it took two beers or glasses of wine to get that buzz and then three, then more.  The problem is the brain begins to get used to that feeling and wants more and more to feel that feeling again.  The brain gets used to being washed with dopamine and starts wanting more and more to feel that same feeling it felt in the beginning.  Feed me….

When teens or even young adults use drugs or drink alcohol, they get that sensation they believe will make everything better and each day after that they are chasing that feeling.  They begin to need more and more to feel the same as they did in the beginning.  There is a bigger problem, the earlier you start a using drugs and alcohol, the more you damage the pleasure/fear center in the brain.  Therefore other things in life are less pleasurable such as hearing the laugh of a child, relationships, hobbies, and even sex.  You can imagine where that can lead.

Another serious problem is when the part of your brain, the hippocampus, which controls memory and learning, stops functioning properly.   

Marijuana "When the THC binds with the cannabinoid receptors inside the hippocampus, it interferes with the recollection of recent events. THC also affects coordination, which the cerebellum controls. The basal ganglia direct unconscious muscle movements, which is another reason why motor coordination is impaired when under the influence of marijuana." 

Alcohol “When they treated hippocampal cells with moderate amounts of alcohol, LTP was unaffected, but exposing the cells to large amounts of alcohol inhibited the memory formation mechanism.”

Cocaine and Meth have a similar effect on the brain and in the end damages the brain and its ability to function.

Why is this important?  Because the hippocampus has the most receptors for Cocaine, Meth, THC and alcohol. 

To put the hippocampus function in laymen’s terms is to organize and make since of our memories and send them off to be stored elsewhere.  If it is not functioning properly it does not do its job and does not send our memories off to be stored.  So if you can remember you can’t learn.

Have you ever heard the saying black out drunk?  When the hippocampus gets too much alcohol, it just stops processing your memories.  That is why you wake up and wonder how you got home.   Drugs do the same thing.

The word “addiction” is derived from a Latin term for “enslaved by” or “bound to.” Anyone who has struggled to overcome an addiction—or has tried to help someone else to do so—understands why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2fHQ9eULzk

Mood symptoms:

·        Euphoria

·        Overall sense of wellbeing

·        Depression

·        Anxiety

Behavioral symptoms:

·        Mounting legal problems

·        Preoccupation with obtaining, using, and recovering from methamphetamine use

·        Social isolation

·        Hiding drug use from others

·        Dangerous, risky behaviors

·        Impulsiveness

·        Unexplained financial problems

·        Mounting legal problems

·        Incarceration

·        Interpersonal relationship problems

·        Violent behaviors

·        Appetite depression

·        Binge/crash pattern of abuse

·        Aggression

·        Risky sexual behaviors

·        Tweaking – intently-focused attention

Physical symptoms:

·        Trembling and shaking

·        Nausea and vomiting

·        Insomnia

·        Tolerance

·        Addiction

·        “Meth mouth”

·        Open sores

·        Hair loss

·        Loss of skin elasticity

·        Decreased blood flow through the body’s tissues

·        Vasoconstriction

·        Tachycardia

·        Liver damage

·        Extreme rise in core temperature of body

Psychological symptoms:

·        Nervousness

·        Repetitive behaviors

·        Disorganized thoughts

·        Hallucinations

·        “Meth bugs” or the sensation of bugs crawling underneath the skin

·        Paranoia