addiction and rehab

Some parents who dabbled in drugs when they were in their teens or early twenties may hear of their own kids smoking marijuana and not be too worried about it. After all, you lived through it and it seemed relatively harmless. What you may not know is that marijuana today is far more potent than it was in the 60's and 70's - some of it packs five to 10 times the wallop it did back then. Have a look at how you felt back in the 60's when you smoked marijuana and imagine feeling five to 10 times the impact and you can see why even 'harmless' marijuana is now more addictive and is sending people to a drug rehab.

Why is marijuana so much stronger and more dangerous today? Some growers have specifically cultivated the plants that way: The percentage of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the ingredient that gives marijuana its kick, commonly known as THC, varies widely - from about 0.1% to 10%. The 0.1% variety is grown largely as hemp, the plant fibers used for clothing and other goods, while marijuana used as drugs is usually in the 1 to 2% range. However, if growers separate the male from the female plants, the energy usually used to develop the fertilized seed in female plants is redirected to the flower and resin where the THC concentration is about 10%. The flower and resin are then harvested. This is just one of the techniques growers have employed to make the marijuana on the streets stronger than it used to be, and one of the major reasons why kids these days may need drug rehab even if they're only smoking marijuana.

The second reason why it's more dangerous is because the drug culture has changed. Back in the '60s, for example, it was difficult to find a high school - especially in the suburbs - where anyone at all smoked marijuana and, even then, it was probably just one or two of the hundreds of kids going to the school.

In our schools today, kids are not only smoking marijuana, they are also using heroin, prescription drugs like OxyContin, and just about everything else you can think of. This increases the exposure: no matter what school your kids are going to, you can pretty much guarantee that they know someone who is taking drugs of one sort or another and those drugs will be offered to them. They are also likely to know at least one person whose drug addiction or abuse problem is serious enough to require drug rehab.

Why the big change? High schools, colleges, and even elementary schools are no doubt a reflection of the overall drug culture now prevalent in the U.S. Back in the '60s, kids weren't given Ritalin if they were having trouble in school, parents weren't on tranquilizers, anti-depressants, and so on - not that no one was taking them, but the numbers were relatively small compared to the 22 million needing alcohol or drug rehab today.

Our television programs were not peppered with drug ads, patients weren't requesting those drugs from their doctors - as they are often instructed to do by the ads - and doctors didn't readily prescribe them. In those days, the prescription pad was largely reserved for patients whose problems were physical - antibiotics, blood pressure or heart medications and so on - not mind-altering drugs to which people became addicted and which they need drug detox or drug rehab to quit.

If you want your kids to stay off drugs, if you don't want your kids to look at drugs as the solution to life's problems, don't compromise - even with marijuana. Also, kids whose parents educate them on the dangers of drugs are 50% less likely to take them. If you already have a child who is in any kind of drugs, a good drug rehab program so you can quickly read and hear about the dangerous consequences you can avert the news every day is thrown into.

Gloria MacTaggart is a freelance writer that contributes articles on health.

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addiction and rehab