Dear Parents and Friends,
From the SAMHSA Behavioral Health Barometer http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content//SMA13-4796/SMA13-4796CA.pdf
- About 7 in 9 (77.9%) 12- to 17-year-olds in California in
- 2011-2012 perceived no great risk from smoking marijuana once a month—a rate higher than the national rate.
Other “facts” our high school students have told me about marijuana:
- “Marijuana cures Cancer”
- “I am a better driver after I smoke marijuana.”
- “I focus better after I smoke marijuana.”
Please keep an open dialog with your children about marijuana use – look up facts that you dispute.
Please review the excerpt below and follow the link to read the entire article. 1 in 5 adolescents who tries alcohol, illicit drugs, over the counter drugs or prescription drugs will become an addict. About 2/3rds of our youth have tried marijuana by the 11th grade. These are facts. Addiction is an illness that affects the whole family. Addiction is a chronic disease. Listen to what your kids have to say and counter with facts and support the healthy choices that they make
From Empowering Parents – see link at end for full article
Marijuana destroys motivation, it screws up memory, and it gradually destroys self-esteem. The kids I work with say that it makes them feel “lazy” or “dumb.” Their grades drop, their ambitions disappear, and their friends change. There are emotional changes too – anger and irritability increase and they often become more paranoid. Depression and suicidal thoughts can also be a by-product of smoking marijuana. Remember that while adolescence is always challenging for kids (and parents) it’s not normal for your child’s personality to change in dramatically negative ways. The more a child uses, the more you will see negative emotions and moodiness build up. You may see a gentle, smart, calm child turn into an angry person who doesn’t in any way, shape or form resemble your daughter or son, as was the case with my own child. You will see increasingly dramatic personality changes. One of the keys is to look at what’s happening to your child’s relationships. People focus on bloodshot eyes, but I focus on how drugs affect kids’ values: their love of family, self-respect and the respect they get from others…the issues that people don’t talk about.
I can tell the kids at the Juvenile Justice Center that pot affects their liver or heart, that it will change their grades, and they don’t care one bit. But if I ask, “Has marijuana affected your relationships with people?” they look at me and hang their heads and say, “Yes.” So look honestly at your relationship with your child. As parents, of course, we get confused by of the normal ups and downs of adolescence, but if you have a 12 to 14 year-old going through some unusual or serious emotional changes and relationship changes, be on your toes. Ask yourself, “Is this normal adolescence or has my child’s personality totally switched?” And ask yourself honestly, “What’s happened to my child’s relationships?”
Read more: http://www.empoweringparents.com/marijuana-drug-addiction-and-teens.php#ixzz2s1pHX2HZ
Susan Parmelee, MSW Clinician Western Youth Services 949-680-0516