Posted by paxvox on April 24, 2003, at 20:41:17
In reply to Help””” I want my cousin to stop smoking canabbis, posted by Tepiaca on April 24, 2003, at 19:31:34
OK, I'll give it a stab from first-hand experience. As a teenager during the 1970's, EVERYBODY I knew smoked pot, so I did too. For quite a few years. Now, there is the fact that dope today is a lot stonger in THC content than what we had then. We never believed our parent's or the media's spin on dope, because they lied to us about so much other stuff. Personally, I believe tobacco and alcohol can be much more harmful to a teenager (or anyone for that matter) than a LITTLE pot smoking. Except for several things. Most important is this, and this is the point YOU need to prove to him. There is conclusive evidence that smoking pot DOES have effects on memory and learning ability. A teenager's brain is clearly not fully developed intellectually at that age. So in that context, I can say from MY OWN EXPERIENCE that pot IS BAD for teenager's mental development if used chronicly. It leads to mental apathy and withdrawl at a time when one's mind should be getting crammed with information salient to life.
The other aspect I would argue is that it is STILL ILLEGAL and the laws are a hell of a lot stiffer now than when I was a teen. They put you in jail now for selling a bag of pot when they would have just taken it from you 25 years ago. So, I would submit to your cousin this two-fold explanation. It is not a lie. Smoking pot habitually as a teenager WILL keep one from fully developing intellectual potential, and it WILL get you put in jail, which will affect your life forever. A third point I will touch on, but you will have to research, is that pot still has not been ruled out as being carcinogenic. When one smokes pot, the smoke is inhaled more deeply, and held longer in the lungs. Pot smoke DOES contain harmful chemicals that are highly complex in nature, many have not even been fully studied. So, your cousin *may* be at increased risk for cancer from chronic pot smoking. If your cousin doesn't want to listen to any of these arguements, I'm afraid the only way you can make him stop is to threaten to bust him to his parents or the police. He may see you as a fiend and traitor, but at 17 I don't think he sees the whole picture. If you are a responsible person, you CAN make this choice. He may hate you for awhile, as an alcoholic would if you detoxed him, but ultimately, you would be doing the right thing. I know that there are others out there who will challenge my post for scientific accuracy. Well,I challenged it myself for 30 years. I think I have been convinced. Hope this helps.
PAX
poster:paxvox
thread:222111
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030423/msgs/222143.html