Look Through The Smoke
Anything that can labeled as a “gateway” must be analyzed through the lenses of a two-way street.
Marijuana (otherwise known as weed, or “bud”) deserves the title it has as being the “gateway drug.” With the help of its main constituent, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), that targets the CB1 receptor among many, marijuana loosens up a lot of inhibitions, and makes the stars seem closer and wider than they actually are.
When inhaled, dopamine, the literal “feel-good” hormone is released. That’s the real high most people can never get enough of. It offers that euphoric “high”, that soars through the blood vessels of the brain, through and around the blood-brain barrier to satiate a person’s internal reward system.
It’s the cherry on the pie that bonds rebellious teenagers and other eclectic characters alike.
Is it harmless though…?
In the book, Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence by Alex Berenson, the very first chapter exposes the origins of cannabis’s expansion into India and Mexico.
Berenson references an book by Isaac Campos, a professor at the University of of Cincinnati titled Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. In regards to Mexico, most Mexicans gradually came to a eye-opening realization about marijuana:
“It didn’t merely causes users to hallucinate, like psychotropics. Or excite them, like cocaine. Or disinhibit them, like alcohol. It led to a delirium indistinguishable from insanity and often accompanied by violence.”
By common lingo, wavy or plain T-shirts with the leaf symbol, movies and T.V. shows in Hollywood that include potheads, and the emerging legalization of marijuana nationwide in America, marijuana can be felt and smelled everywhere nowadays.
That wasn’t always the case. In a 1969 Gallup survey, only 4% of Americans had smoked or even been close to weed. Rates of marijuana usage and people who smoke marijuana have seen notable increases since around the 90s, but before the 1960s, the presence of marijuana in a social sense was like asking if people could hear the cut-down tree in the middle of the forest, making a sound.
As of 2020, eleven states have signed official legislation to legalize usage of weed (for recreational purposes), with Illinois being the latest. Colorado was the first state to do so back in 2012.
All of these states have varying stipulations and age restrictions on how much weed in quantity a person is allowed to be in legal possession of. In addition, 22 more states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes or research.
In terms of health benefits, there are numerous positives and negatives to support arguments people that are pro-marijuana and anti-marijuana have made.
Beyond just stirring up intense cravings and red eyes, smoking weed, especially on a frequent basis, has been associated with mild to flagrant psychosis, mood swings, nausea, loss of memory and information retention affecting the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex (the prefrontal cortex doesn’t fully mature on average until the age of 25), a lowered ability to learn new ideas, impaired impulse control and on and on and on.
There are studies represented in Tell Your Children that mention correlations and casual causations between usage of marijuana and behaviors like opiate addiction, psychosis, and even violent behavior.
Most schizophrenics, especially depicted in popular culture are seen as naturally violent people. The correlation between marijuana and schizophrenia is not concrete, but some studies have concluded there to be a tame link between the two. Considering what composes marijuana besides THC, and how it impacts the brain and relative cells in the body, the correlation founded should be taken seriously.
The concentration of THC in marijuana has increased over time from the pre-1960s era (the average joint in the 1970s carried 2.5 to 5 milligrams of THC, which rounded up to around 1 to 2 percent of the whole weight of a marijuana cigarette.)
It would take a couple of cigarettes to achieve a perfect high. Nowadays, the percent of concentration has reached 20 to 25 percent. Marijuana isn’t inherently addictive; it was engineered to be. Once that is understood, the fog over the association between marijuana and mental illness starts to clear up.
On top of that, an inverse relationship is present, where the onset of schizophrenia is predictive of a future habit of smoking weed. Young children who have family members that have psychosis or symptoms of it have an increased probability of contracting it as well. A lot of disorders and diseases work like that (second-hand smoke is the perfect analogy.)
Psychosis can be loosely treated as an umbrella that many other mental disorders spawn off from, including schizophrenia. In research posted in May 2017 in the journal Psychiatric Services, led by researchers from the Kaiser Permanente, the findings suggested (when scaled up) that over 100,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 59 get a psychotic disorder every year.
According to a survey in the same year from SAMHSA, about two and a half million people between the ages of 18 and 25, the biggest demographic in general for cannabis users, fit the criteria for having a serious mental illness. Throw in there suicidal thoughts and attempts as Berenson in Tell Your Children describes it, and some will have to wonder whether other things besides the rise of social media have been a grave mistake.
There are many other stats and numbers that can be mentioned, but regardless the message is clear: mental illness is a cancer in of itself, at least in America.
Now young or old, marijuana can be a life-saver or just as detrimental to one’s health as smoking cigarettes. The negative impact cigarette smoking has on people’s lung health and otherwise is very indisputable. Ofcourse there are cases of people, male or female, that smoked a pack a day, every day for 40 years and never contracted lung cancer. But they are exceptions to the rule.
Marijuana has only been legalized in certain states for medical usage. Even with that, its efficacy must be questioned as the FDA hasn’t even approved of cannabis being prescribed to treat any medical condition.
The other noteworthy chemical in marijuana, CBD (cannabidiol), subtracts the euphoric effect of THC. Like it’s half-brother, CBD does offer side effects of feeling drowsy, dizzy, nauseated and becoming very hungry. To counter that, the laundry list of ailments it takes of care includes chronic aches and pains, inflammation, insomnia, depression in certain cases and even anxiety.
CBD oil similar to other drugs is known for its power to aid recovering addicts going through withdrawal or who’ve decided to end their addiction once and for all since it doesn’t drive up those addictive cravings or need for a “fix” like THC does.
Sadly though, there are mighty regulations placed on the distribution of products, supplements, etc. that contain CBD and substances derived from it in relation to cannabis, enforced by federal law and agencies like the FDA and DEA. There’s only one drug called Epidiolex which has gotten a stamp of approval from the FDA.
Compared to decades prior, the quantity of THC concentration in weed is way higher.
The form in which marijuana is consumed (edibles, vaping, smoking, etc.) is of considerable importance regarding the psychological and physiological effect it has on the brain and body.
The rapid commercialization of these products, and incessant advertising among youth audiences is raising concern over what the real motive the medical establishment and popular culture has for promoting marijuana as a whole.
The same paranoia has struck like lightning over the hazardous danger JUULS and other related nicotine-based vaping devices like E-cigarettes have been exposed to cause. The usage of e-cigarettes and vaping products has a meteoric uptick in about the last decade.
These products heat liquid that produce aerosol, which is composed from a variety of unpronounceable chemicals and artificial flavorings. The manufacturers and distributors of said products are not always the most trustworthy, affirming legitimacy to the complaints being brought up.
The FDA studied and analyzed samples of multiple vaping products, and a relative high percentage of them were detected to hold Vitamin E as a diluent.
From the outbreak of many patients in many states being hospitalized recently last year, it was discovered that the vaping products they were using contained Vitamin E acetate.
The majority of the patients were young, or male, or both.
Vitamin E acetate locks itself onto lung tissue. According to the CDC, Vitamin E actetate messes up the lining within the lungs. The surfactant within the lungs can be damaged because the lipids and proteins its made out of are being destabilized. This can interrupt the lungs’ natural function to expand and contract.
When it’s heated to a unbearably high temperature, a byproduct called ketene can be released, which can potentially lead to harsher respiratory problems. Ketene is an colorless gas that’s extremely reactive, known to irritate the eyes and stir up liquid fireworks. Its effect on the lungs and respiratory system is not far off from that.
The shady manufacturers who produce “bootleg” versions of vaping products will add in the common vitamin supplement to thicken the substance, and dilute the prized THC. It works well when mixed in lotions or creams; it wasn’t designed to be consumed into the digestive system.
Most patients admitted or were found to be inhaling THC on a consistent basis. Although nicotine isn’t the culprit in questioning in here, to highlight a correlation between inhaling nicotine and inhaling THC should be a no-brainer. One enables the risk to take the other.
With vaping, the endless array of disorders and health complications that arise are startling and morosely captivating. One study or another has concluded that in slight or moderate correlation, e-cigarettes are associated with higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, depression, uneven pregnancy, weakened fertility, seizures, etc.
A study done by the American College of Cardiology Foundation revealed that when adjusted for key physical factors in heart health like age, cholesterol, etc., users of e-cigarettes were just over 30% more likely to have a heart attack, over 50% more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression (mere cousins of each other) and one-fourth more probable to get coronary artery disease.
The numbers when tested for traditional smokers didn’t fare well either.
Is it safe to say that e-cigarettes and other vaping products are treated and viewed as the “diet soda” of their respective line? Just because they are a formidable alternative doesn’t make them necessarily better.
Drugs seem to be another outlet and industry where producers will always find ways to innovate and reap new profits off of their consumer base, regardless of the health risks. The explosion of crack cocaine in the 80s is just one overt example.
The production of crack was catalyzed by the growing insurgence of marijuana into the cultural landscape in America. Before the 1960s and 1970s, it wasn’t even anywhere close to a debate on whether or not people should be able to smoke weed and use it for any purpose they see fit.
The discourse in relation to the legalization of marijuana, like many other topics, has been tainted by the encroaching politicization it has experienced. This divisiveness brought into the matter isn’t anything new.
Every president after Lyndon B. Johnson has publicly addressed an opinion on it, and has made efforts to sway public consensus and craft decisive policy. The famous George Soros, known for his “Open Society” initiative has thrown his hat into the ring for To top that off, Reagan’s wife, Nancy Reagan supported many anti-drug campaigns and parent groups involved in the cause. She even coined the phrase “Just Say No” to make the message clear. As the lobby that was pro-legalization gained size and resources, naturally there was a fervent counter-response.
Above all else to an extent, there is an pernicious racial dynamic to the historical context around marijuana and it’s impact on society. If you look at how marijuana is described before the second half of the 20th century, the terminology and phrasing used was meant to indicate an “outsider status”, like a parasite invading territory and occupying the space of the vulnerable host.
That could be farther from the case, as any marijuana that got into nations like the United States was partially or mostly voluntary, in limited quantities. As mentioned prior, the THC concentration has rampantly increased over as laws on cannabis regulation have weakened.
Marijuana wasn’t in its current state physically back then. It came in hemp form, from places like Mexico and India. Whether it was said publicly or not, many politicians, like the infamous Henry Aslinger who fought to keep laws on marijuana regulation strict (through FDR’s administration he got the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, and a decent portion of the American public viewed smoking cannabis as an pastime only minorities and poorer whites got involved in.
For a while, it seems like any fallacious reasoning or argument was brought up to deter the encouragement and promotion of cannabis, from Prohibition and the temperance movement to cinema like the 1936 film Reefer Madness to appeals to racial unity and superiority. As Isaac Campos wrote in his book, cannabis’s roots in Mexico are linked to the indigenous population and the outskirts of Mexican society.
Mexicans themselves viewed marijuana as something only “soldiers and the poor” played around with. Even the poor had their suspicions about the damage marijuana could do.
In India under British rule, strands like bhang which were in THC concentration, Indian hemp, ganja (from the plant’s “flowers”) and even charas, which were made by rubbing resin to the same flowers, were grown and produced. There were regulations (“The British loved bureaucracy and record-keeping”) on everything, but the British initially didn’t care too much because their efforts were more focused on opium back home.
The potential connection between cannabis and psychosis and schizophrenia through various case studies from Indian and British figures in the medical community would eventually begin to reveal itself, but British authorities chose in some regard to be ignorant.
It’s funny how marijuana was depicted as a “non-white drug invading the white community”, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Lester Grinspoon. Drugs like marijuana are another issue where unfair stereotypical associations can be made upon certain groups who’ve always generally gotten the short end of the stick.
Poorer whites, and white people who were jazz musicians certainly lit up plenty of joints (the term “reefer” was conceived out of this subculture), but since they were not like the majority of their brethren, they were lumped in with the rest.
Race is a critical factor that cannot be ignored in the discussion about cannabis. As documented, African-Americans are diagnosed with schizophrenia, and other types of mental illnesses at a higher rate than whites. Skepticism can be held on whether the data for that holds weight, considering the implicit and explicit bias that’s prevalent within institutions like the medical establishment.
To this day, African Americans are disproportionately arrested for drug/marijuana charges at a wild rate, although their rate of consumption is only moderately higher. Marijuana is another excuse of many to perpetuate an unequal system.
African-Americans don’t have a natural propensity to smoke weed, like how rural White Americans don’t have a natural propensity towards opiates (courtesy can be given to China and Mexico for that horrific epidemic currently plaguing America.) But there’s a foul smell in the air; there always has been with America. Marijuana is one marker to demonstrate the pattern.
Marijuana is no longer just an obscure thing that insecure, angsty teenagers, skateboarders and emo-types do to fit in or look cool. It’s an unofficial code that as a recording artist, especially a rapper, you and your crew have to be “high” while recording in the studio. Most rappers, deliberately or not, participate in expedient product placement by lighting one up in the photos they’re seen in, and the music videos they shoot.
For them, it’s “a part of the lifestyle”. For others, not so famous or fortunate, over time, it becomes a habit. It’s value is dealt with on par with food, sex, water or shelter, consciously or not. What is undeniable is that people rise and fall on their habits; that is indisputable.
It’s designed to generate more revenue for the vested interests who do business in these particular industries, and to keep you hooked for as long as possible.
Marijuana may come from a natural plant, but that doesn’t mean that the effect it has isn’t artificially enhanced. It’s designed for you to use and handle like a toy, an action figure. It preys on the people who smoke it, and don’t have the critical thinking skills to question their behavior (i.e. young people).
It’s created to be consumed like social media, or your favorite take-out meal. Too much consumption though can lead down a dark rabbit hole that doesn’t lead towards the inviting fantasy of Wonderland.
Tell Your Children contains several harrowing stories of people who became addicts and crippled users of marijuana, whose symptoms aggressively worsened and whose denial of the matter sputtered out of control. It ruined their outlook on life, and decimated their personal relationship and any ambitions they might’ve had.
A lot of them uncover the emotional abuse that is caused by marijuana consumption, the internal confusion it whips up (“Bipolar disorder is a superpower, psychosis not so much.”)
It may seem harsh to summarize the extent of their pain and scars using an inciting word like “abuse”, but with what was shared, marijuana can not come across off as a deranged spouse, draining their partner of all their energy.
“Cannabis psychosis is the drug equivalent of a car accident, a semiprivate incident that doesn’t make news unless someone is injured.”
What those stories demonstrate is the socially inconvenient truth about marijuana: It’s a delusion to believe elsewise, because nothing is as harmless or “freeing” as they might seem. Dependence on marijuana stirs dependence towards any other drug, and vice-versa. It’s truly a vicious feedback loop no one should get lost in.
Besides, marijuana really does smell awful; like a ever-growing lopsided pile of trash rotting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So with marijuana —
Smoke it at your peril, but don’t inhale the deeper consequences.
I am Justin Cole, a young, passionate writer from New York City. Even as we ride out the latter half of this curve, and the epidemic can cease to exist in the next couple of months, please continue to stay safe and stay informed.
In addition, America is dealing with political polarization, a imminent economic depression, mass unemployment, racial strife and divisions all in the midst of one contentious election year.
We all can do something to make amends and ease the tension. I hope we all find the strength in our minds and hearts to do so.
Please check out my other articles here if you so may. Also, check out this guy, a personal trainer named Alexander J.A. Cortes, whose products that he sells I’m an affiliate for (geared towards people looking to stay fit and be in shape.)
Take care.
