Earned Long-Term Study

It is evident that as teenagers, our brains are still developing and the use of marijuana can interfere with the growth and change of the structure of our brain. Many tests have been done to show that marijuana effects areas in the brain that deal with memory and problem solving, students have one grade point lower than those who do not smoke pot, and those who started using marijuana in their teenage years and continued to use it many years after are said to have lost about 8 IQ points from childhood to adulthood. However, studies show that those who used the most marijuana had lower IQ’s to begin with, thus leading to the conclusion that teenagers have subtle emotional and functional differences causing them to use pot for comfort. Although, more funding is needed for “better designed long-term studies” as current research is unable to answer all the questions on the risk of marijuana.
The good part is that people feel ‘good’ while using the drug, however if they continue to use it they feel the need to smoke more and more of it, unaware of what it is doing to their bodies. I believe it is one’s choice to use the drug or not, though I think the reason behind the high rates of teenagers abusing marijuana is because they are under peer pressure and feel like in order to fit in or be popular/cool, they must be like their peers and use