Marijuana can have long-lasting harmful effects on a teen’s health and well-being. The teen brain is developing and will not be fully developed until the mid twenties. Marijuana use may harm the developing teen brain.
Marijuana is the dried leaves and flowers of the Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica plant. Stronger forms of the drug exist which include some high potency strains. These are known as sinsemilla (sin-seh-me-yah), hashish (hash for short), and extracts including hash oil, shatter, wax, and budder.
Of the more than five-hundred chemicals in marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is responsible for many of the drug’s psychotropic effects. It is THC that distorts how the mind perceives the world. It is what makes the person ‘high’.
The amount of THC in marijuana has increased over recent decades. In the early 1990s, the average THC content in marijuana was less than four percent. It is now around fifteen percent. It is even higher in some versions such as oils and other extracts.
