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August 14th, 2017 
admin Marijuana and Behavior
Lewis a 17 year old African American is a marijuana addict who uses the drug at least twice on a daily basis. Currently, he is under probation due to violating house arrest after he was detained while riding in a stolen car in the company of an older lady. Immediately after his arrest, he was placed under house arrest but after further violation, he was subjected to a mandatory drug test where his urine tested positive for marijuana use. This led to him being sent in for counseling during his probation. His history of marijuana use began when he was 12 years old. He was introduced to the drug by older peers within his community who he had already seen using the drug prior to his introduction and thus they readily taught him how to smoke without forcing him. According to Lewis, after they taught him how to smoke, he described his first experience as a body sensation of feeling stoned or high. This encouraged him to try it out once again; however smoking also led to the reddening of his eyes and a feeling of lost control. It was easy to detect he was under the influence of marijuana. Soon enough, he quickly learned how to conceal these changes in behavior and began smoking on a daily basis.
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By this time, Lewis was already on a path to a strong marijuana addiction. He had also seen his mother, with whom he lives with, smoke in his presence. Lewis’ mother’s response was that she is an adult able to make her own life choices. Due to the fact that he was also living around people accustomed to smoking marijuana, he claims this made him see no problem with smoking the drug as others were doing it without any significant changes in their daily lives. This is not the case with Lewis; his chronic marijuana usage limits him from performing at his best in daily activities. Lewis himself began to notice this change in lifestyle after he was let go from his recent job at a local warehouse distribution center. He further claims he wished he did not have to rely on marijuana to simply feel at ease.
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Currently in the United States, Marijuana is the drug that most teenagers first experiment with and it is also the most extensively abused illicit drug in the country. Based on statistics, a population of more than 107 million Americans has already tried the drug at least once in their lifetime with more than 16 million continuing to become regular users (Iversen, 2000). Marijuana is mostly smoked and can also be ingested through the mouth and for that reason has speedy access into the blood system. This makes it easily able to cross into the blood-brain barrier that is in charge of the passage of substances to the brain a phenomenon not common with regular drugs. It is reason that it is able to impair the normal functioning of the brain leading to changes in behavior. The most prominent behavioral changes are altered sense of time, laziness, reduced short-term memory, paranoia, loss of concentration or absenteeism, sensor motor disorders, and antisocial behavior.
Frequent users of marijuana tend to register high levels of antisocial behavior. For instance, they may quickly transform from being outgoing and social individuals to an individual who is silent, reserved and favors being alone in isolation. They develop a habit of spending most of their time locked indoors to smoke marijuana instead of engaging with other people in their society. Other antisocial behaviors that can be observed with marijuana addicts include lack of concern for others and losing or terminating of friendship bonds (Popovici, French, Pacula, & Maclean, 2014).
Another common behavioral symptom with marijuana smokers is the tendency to be lazy or sluggish in what they do. This can also be called de-motivation which is characterized by confusion, difficulties in accomplishing assigned tasks, and declining performance. Based on recent research, employees who smoke marijuana have a higher risk of being unproductive at the workplace. This is because they register high rates of absenteeism, lateness, getting into small and avoidable accidents and lower productivity. They also tend to have behaviors associated with laziness like disappearing from their work stations without permission, constant distractions that lead to negligence of duty, dodging tasks, and wasting company time to attend to irrelevant personal matters all of which lead to lower productivity (Coon, 2006).
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Young adults and adolescents, in general, depend on the short-term memory, since they are still in the process of growth and thus constantly receiving new input and learning at the same time. Consistent use of marijuana leads to behavioral changes like appearing troubled most of the time, confusion, nervousness, delusions, hallucinations, and forgetfulness. Due to long term usage of marijuana, these individuals will suffer from memory loss which affects their behavior. The more one smokes marijuana and gets accustomed to it, they increase their dosage with time which will lead to the brain being impaired more as one tries to reac
h their optimum state. This is because it affects many parts of the brain making it reduce its ability by handling lower capacity causing a permanent effect (Iversen, 2000). Thus, even in the absence of marijuana, the brain is already altered and cannot achieve its best possible level of performance. Given the intensity of damage to the brain, the entire body will also be affected. This creates cognitive drawbacks like failure in sensor motor skills, coordination when walking, driving, or any task that requires skills that rely on persistent attention. Short term memory also causes these individuals to quickly forget items on a list quickly or even instantly and even names of people that have just been introduced to them. Marijuana use also affects the individual’s ability to remain in touch with reality which is observable through hallucinations without a clear cause together with fantasies or beliefs without any basis of reality. This occurs because the individuals mind is overwhelmed by ideas that do not match to the subject that they are trying to give attention to in the first place. Since the ideas are not willingly summoned by the individual to their brain, they continue increasing and becoming exciting dominating over ones attention and creating bizarre links to fantastic creations (Coon, 2006). This leads to the individuals forgetting the important things they are supposed to concentrate on by taking up all their attention which makes them lose touch with reality. All these behavioral changes lead to focusing much on imagination leading to an individual neglecting their own self. This is the reason that most addicts of marijuana will register lower levels of achievement in education and employment because their concentration is consumed by fantasies and hallucinations. Research has proven that compared with their peers in school, heavy marijuana users have poor high-school and college performance before beginning to abuse the drug. This also leads to the high dropout rates among these individuals.
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Another behavioral effect of marijuana is that it normally offers a platform for individuals to entirely change their personality and engage in crime, and violence as it acts as a stepping stone to harder illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin. Once an individual begins using marijuana, most of their social interaction is mostly with other drug-using peers and drug peddlers or dealers which creates an avenue for them to gain access to greater illicit drug markets which may prompt them to get into harder drugs. With an increase in their personal demand for drugs and especially for those without the necessary financial capability, it opens a gateway for petty crime which escalates into violent crime as their addiction increases. This is also because maintaining such close contact with the drug dealers, makes one become familiar with the criminal life style or rather normalizing it internally since they have already a sense of self, which creates the ease for them to commit serious or fatal violent unlawful offenses in order to satisfy their urge (Popovici et al, 2014).
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Further research has also proven that mothers who smoke marijuana during pregnancy expose the infants to behavioral and developmental effects during the period spanning of the first few months after birth. This could also extend up to age 9 in children where most behavioral defects that will be observable include deficits in higher cognitive functioning, memory and sustained attention. These children are easily distractible and find it difficult to maintain prolonged focus due to their affected childhood cognitive growth (Iversen, 2000). Marijuana also leads to talkativeness and infectious laughter when used in a social situation with the occurrence of artificial joy, relaxation and time distortion. It also intensifies regular sensory experiences like music listening, ingestion of food, liquids and viewing films. The most frequent repulsive side effects of cannabis use are feelings of anxiety and panic reactions. There is no overdose for marijuana but if taken in large or highly concentrated doses, blood pressure is affected which leads to an increase in heartbeat. This is because the muscles begin to relax and expand the blood arteries and veins which is the reason most users will have red eyes after using the drug.
Despite the controversy with marijuana usage and its effects, it can be concluded that this particular drug tends to negatively alter the functions on users’ everyday lives. This is due to its “feel good” vibe it produces on users and their developing reliance on it. Like Lewis, many others face the problem of frequent money spending to support their Marijuana addiction. Without their routine usage of smoking, some can begin to feel a rise in anxiety and unease. In addition, giving in to reduce your anxiety by smoking causes you to face a loss of interest and focus when performing regular tasks and duties. Incoming mothers face the most consequences when under the influence of marijuana due to the extended effects it has on their unborn. Whether someone chooses to use this drug for their medical or recreational needs, marijuana holds a place in the schedule one level of different narcotics within the United States and will continue to do so for future periods to come.
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