A Teenager’s View On Marijuana
This month, the message, “Don’t do drugs, drugs kill,” is told in our schools, in the media and from many other people. For the years leading up to that drive home, I believed all the propaganda. So when my mother told me that my father smokes medicinal marijuana for his pain, I was incredibly
shocked. It took a while, but finally I came to terms a few weeks later, with
the thought of my father using marijuana.
Over the past two years I have learned about the other, unspoken side of marijuana from my parents, the web, my own projects and various other sources. Through all of the things that were new to me, I learned that marijuana is not the evil drug society has made it out to be. It is in fact a very helpful drug and has aided many people in the past. I have personally experienced it’s medicinally positive affects on people, with my father. He uses it for chronic back pain caused by a military injury, 16 years ago. It helps him to sleep, eat, and generally get through the day a bit more comfortably, something that is difficult for him to do.
Something I find are a lot of the teens around me either smoke it because of peer pressure or because it gets them high or they are completely against it. There is so much more to this drug that people do not often see. I feel part of this is due to the schools and the media giving it a bad reputation and
calling it a “gateway” drug. In my own personal opinion, they should really focus more on the harder drugs like cocaine and heroine and not be so negative with marijuana. I often get asked at school if I smoke it by fellow classmates. I have no desire to even try it and they find that kind of funny. But this is how I see it. Just because it is in my house, doesn’t mean that I have to use it. Something else they like to make comments about is the fact that my father smokes it. It irritates me to no end to listen to them call people like my father things like “stoner” or “pothead” when they are neither of which.
It’s not fair for them to get that stereotype when they have to use something different because a conventional medicine does not work anymore for them. All in all, I feel marijuana is a great asset to society and to medicine, just as soon as people start to give it a chance or see it in a different light. A lot more people could be helped if others would just do those things. I can’t say much though. After all, this is only one teenager’s view on medicinal marijuana.
— Krysania, Age 15
