| Marijuana and its effects on motor functions:
Marijuana can render an effect on intellectual and physical reactions. Marijuana disrupts coordination and increases the response reaction time. The response of a person to light and sound signals is disturbed worsens the ability to perform consecutive actions and the degree of perception worsens. The strong need to move, walk and talk and having characteristic unnatural poses at rest are observed.
Marijuana and its other consequences:
Chronic fatigue, headache, nausea.
The most terrible effect is that marijuana leads to the use of potent narcotic drugs. The latest research showed that people using crack, heroin and hallucinogenic substances almost always used marijuana before.
International Statistical Data:
According to UNO data, 158.8 million people in the world use marijuana. This is more than 3.8% of the population of the planet.
More than 94 million Americans had admitted that they at least once have tried marijuana.
In the USA, according to a national survey on narcotics and public health services, which was carried out in 2007, 2.1 million people have used marijuana for the first time in that year alone.
As of 2007, 6.7% teenagers have used marijuana ranging in age from 12 to 17 yrs.
According to the assessment of the USA government, marijuana production in the country has increased ten fold for the last 25 years: from 1000 tons in 1981 to 10,000 tons in 2006. It is not surprising that 58% of teenagers in the age group from 12 to 17 years admit that it is not difficult to get marijuana. In the USA, marijuana smokers had spent around ten and half billions dollars for buying this drug in the year 2000.
In the USA, 242,200 persons have approached the emergency services because of marijuana abuse in 2005.
According to the Administration for fight against narcotics in the USA, the considerable percentage of people, arrested for offences or crimes, were found positive in the test for marijuana use. If it is considered on a national scale, 40% arrested for various crimes were found positive in the test for marijuana levels in the body.
Among an adult age group from 26 years and above, who started to use marijuana before the age of 15 years, 62% have sooner or later moved to cocaine; at least 9% at one time in their life took heroin and 54% used prohibited psychotropic drugs.
Marijuana is the second most widespread (after alcohol) substance, which can be found in the blood of drivers who meet road accidents.
Other harmful affects of marijuana:
The acute reaction to marijuana abuse includes an increase in heart rate, disorientation, deterioration in the coordination of movements, due to which occurs depression or drowsiness. A few suffer from panic attacks and agitation.
But the problem is not limited to these effects. According to scientific research, the active component of hemp, i.e. ТHC remains in the body for weeks and even much longer.
Marijuana smoke contains 50–70% more cancer causing substances than tobacco smoke. In one serious scientific report, it is asserted that one jamb of marijuana is more harmful for the lungs than five cigarettes, smoked one after another. Long-term marijuana smokers often get bronchitis - an inflammation of respiratory tracts.
This narcotic not only harms your physical health. The research done in 2008 in Australia indicated that the excessive abuse of marijuana for several years lead to a decline in brain activity. It is confirmed by early the research on the effects of the long-term abuse of marijuana, which have revealed the changes in a brain similar to that has been invoked by the long-term use of other widespread narcotics. All the research confirms the relation between regular abuse of marijuana and psychosis.
Marijuana changes the cell structure of spermatozoons, deforming them. Therefore, even a small quantity of marijuana can invoke temporary sterility in men. Marijuana smoking causes a disordered menstrual cycle in women.
Several independent studies confirmed that the cogitative functions of people, who smoked a lot of marijuana, tend to worsen. The THC, contained in hemp, disturbs the functioning of the nervous cells of the brain, which has a negative impact on the memory.
Cannabis (Hemp) - is one of the few narcotics which cause abnormal cell division that leads to serious inherited defects. Pregnant woman, who regularly uses marijuana or hashish, may give birth to a preterm underdeveloped baby with a low birth weight. In the last few years, many children, whose parents took marijuana since their birth lacked vital energy and were less capable of concentrating and achieving goals in life. Studies have also shown that, if the mother uses this narcotic, it can lead to congenital defects in children, intellectual deficiencies and an increased risk of diseases like leukemia.
The effects of Marijuana on the Respiratory system:
A few reliable studies exist regarding the long-term effects of cannabis smoking. The normal functioning of the lungs, apparently, owing to cannabis smoking, changes, which causes an abstinence from smoking. Marijuana cigarettes contain more tar than a normal cigarette with tobacco. Cannabis tar contains a higher quantity of carcinogens than tobacco tar. It is more dangerous, especially when the marijuana smoker (in order to increase the effect of the drug) inhales the smoke deeply and holds it longer in the lungs. Unfortunately, observations regarding long-term effects were not conducted. The problem in determining these effects is due to the fact that the cannabis smoker generally smokes cigarettes also, which makes it difficult to differentiate the effects of cigarette smoking and cannabis smoking. Nevertheless, the probability of incurable damage to lungs from marijuana smoking remains a fact.
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By tradition, cannabis lovers around the world celebrate 4/20 (April 20) by smoking marijuana communally. The tradition was started in 1971 by the teenagers in San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California - they would meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke cannabis at the Louis Pasteur statue.
The group's salute was "420 Louis!".
Later, marijuana smokers chose April 20th as "their holiday", because of the 4/20 calendar numbers for this date.
