Marijuana (cannabis) is the most popular illegal drug in the world. It is estimated that worldwide, over 160,000,000 people use marijuana every day.

Marijuana use can lead to psychosis.

Psychosis is a major mental disorder, impairing a person's ability to think, respond emotionally, remember, communicate, interpret reality and behave appropriately -- to a degree that the person can't meet the ordinary demands of life. Symptoms can include seeing, hearing, smelling, or tasting things that are not there; paranoia; and delusional thoughts. Depending on the condition, psychotic symptoms may be constant or might come and go.

Marijuana smoking often begins in the early teen years. This is particularly unfortunate as the young brain is particularly prone to damage.

Dr. Staci A. Gruber confirmed this at the 2010 annual session of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California. She talked about a small but important study of 35 chronic marijuana smokers who averaged 22 years of age. 

Twenty of the subjects started smoking marijuana regularly before the age of 16. The rest delayed regular smoking until age 16 or later. 

This is the seventh blog in a series exploring the benefits of eating meals together as a family.

This report comes from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Bisakha Sen, scholar at the Lister Hill Center said, “Increased frequency of family dinners is associated with lower probabilities of all substance-use and running away for females; binge-drinking, physical fights, property-destruction, stealing and running away for males; and less marijuana use for both genders. In addition, these effects are evident even when the empirical models control for good family connectedness, close parental monitoring, and other potential confounders.”

This is the fifth in a series of blogs about the benefits of connectedness between parents and children.

Research shows that :
“…among both older and younger teens, those who felt very connected to parents and other family members reported less frequent use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. The presence of parents at home during key times of the day was associated with a lower likelihood of smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol among older teens (those in grades 9 – 12) and with a lower likelihood of marijuana use among both older and younger teens.”

This is the fifth in a series of blogs examining benefits of parental monitoring.

A study was conducted by doctoral students attending Claremont University in California on parents, teens and marijuana use.

The researcher reported that marijuana is the most widely used by teens, and that 42% have used pot by their senior year of high school (year 12 in America).

Boys certainly have potential issues with drug use at an early age but for this blog belongs to a series of posts dedicated to describing drug use issues among young girls.

Some adults have the general sense that substance abuse among youngsters is more common for boys than girls. In many cases they may be right, but what do we really know about girls and drugs?