Marijuana Use Higher than Tobacco Among Teens While Alcohol Use Goes Down
What parents want for their children and what children are doing with their lives still seem to be on divergent paths. Parents generally want their kids to learn job skills or to prepare for careers, and to proceed safely through life until they develop enough experience to have good judgment. But more teens are now smoking marijuana, not exactly on the path that parents might choose. In fact, marijuana use among teens is more common than cigarette smoking according to the most recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, there are a couple of good signs. Alcohol consumption is down slightly and cigarette smoking has also been trending down, dropping to 18.7% this year, down from 21.6% in 2006. As for how many were smoking marijuana, that was 23% of American teens.
Far more teens are drinking than smoking cigarettes. In 1997, 74.8% had drunk in the past year and last year, just 63.5% did. But the use of narcotics other than heroin stayed at a high level, maintaining the level it reached after steady increases from 1992 through 2001.
Teens Feel Marijuana Does Not Make them Bad Drivers
Another recent survey of teens showed that they did not feel that smoking marijuana had a negative influence on their driving, but a study published in the British Medical Journal showed that driving within three hours of using marijuana makes one twice as likely to have an accident as someone who drives sober.
Narconon Program Helps Individuals Leave Addiction Behind
For tens of thousands of people around the world who want to stop using a drug, the Narconon program has provided a way to do so. Not only that, this program has provided a way to repair the damage that addiction does, and to build new sober living skills. So often after addiction lasting years or even decades, a person loses their abilities to make sober choices. The Narconon program walks each person through the process of learning how to stay sober.
After completing a drug-free withdrawal, each person goes through a deep detoxification process that uses time in a sauna, nutritional supplements, and moderate daily exercise. This combination has been proven to enable the body to flush out old stored toxins lodged deep in the fatty tissues of the body. These toxins include residues from past drug use that can contribute to the triggering of cravings, even years after drug use stops. The presence of these toxins is part of the reason that a person may be sober for years and then suddenly lose the battle.
Then, at their own pace, each person takes on each challenge presented by one of the Narconon life skills courses, starting with the simplest but most essential skill: the ability to face another person and communicate one’s intention clearly. They also learn to listen to another person and acknowledge them properly. These simple skills start to put each person in control of their own life for the first time since the addiction began.
Then as each person walks through the rest of the program, they gradiently build skills like knowing who to associate with who will support their sobriety and how to deal with those who might bring it to an end, solving problems instead of letting them drive you to escape in drugs or drink, and use of a common sense moral code. All these steps culminate in the ability to stay sober after graduation for seven out of ten people who finish this program and return home.
Learn more about the Narconon program and how it provides sobriety in dozens of locations around the world.
Resources:
®