Allyson Chan
Reporting by Hannah Li and Naomi Kotani.
*Students’ names have been changed upon request as a condition of having granted the interview.
After a year of staring at faceless names and tiny digital whiteboards on Zoom, now-senior *Ava began using marijuana as a sophomore to cope with the stress of transitioning back to in-person learning. Since then, she has used marijuana, commonly referred to as weed, almost every day, sometimes several times daily.
“My mental health was really bad, so I used it as a way to distract myself from what was happening,” Ava said. “I want it before I go to bed, when I’m bored out of my mind or I can’t get myself to start doing my homework. Sometimes I just take a hit to calm down and not worry as much.”
Ava is just one of many students who use marijuana. According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 1.5 million people aged 12 to 17 used marijuana that year, ranking as the 3rd most commonly used substance among those aged 12 and older.
Process
Benjamin Eiland, instructor of the addiction studies program at the College of San Mateo and director of three adolescent treatment programs, has noted marijuana’s increasing prevalence among teens and young adults, with many beginning usage during high school. According to Eiland, while some may only be experimenting with marijuana, those who become regularly dependent on it can face devastating consequences.
“You can be a cucumber [and] become a pickle,” Eiland said. “But once you’re a pickle, you can never become a cucumber again. Once a person has an addiction problem, there isn’t any way that the person is going to be able to go back and use substances without consequences. Marijuana is a [motivation-reducing] drug, so [in student users], you start seeing declines in their grades, and a loss of interest in things that were important to them. They start changing peer groups, now finding a group that is more aligned with substances.“
The long-term psychological effects of marijuana dependency on adolescents can also lead to serious consequences.
“If [marijuana usage] starts during a period of time when the brain is very vulnerable to learning ways of coping, then neural pathways form,” said Mary Fullerton, College of San Mateo addiction studies instructor. “[They associate marijuana with] ‘this is how I cope with stress, this is how I cope with disappointment, this is how I cope with sadness.’ That pathway gets set early in life and then it’s harder to disentangle.”
Usage
Senior *Elsa started using marijuana when she was in eighth grade, and has since noticed definite effects on her behavior and personality.
“I used to convince myself that [marijuana] was just helping me focus, helping me sleep, helping me eat, helping me do all this stuff,” Elsa said. “I was in my own world most of the time. You would say something to me and I’d disassociate from our whole conversation. I’d walk away and I wouldn’t remember it, or I wouldn’t care.”
Marijuana dependencies have led many students to feel dysfunctional without it, like senior *Alice.
“I feel like I’ve been [using marijuana] for so long that [sometimes] when I’m trying to do homework, I can’t focus without it,” Alice said. “So if I’m really trying to get a lot of homework done, it helps, especially with calming down stress levels.”
Some students have also taken to taking tolerance breaks, in which they stop their usage for a short amount of time in order to lower their marijuana tolerance.
“I wanted to go on a [tolerance] break because I was doing it too much,” Ava said. “It almost felt like when I was smoking I wasn’t getting high because my tolerance was [so] high.”
Other students, however, feel that they have succeeded in creating a more cautious relationship with marijuana. Junior *Max was introduced to marijuana through his sister last summer, and since then, has been deliberate about his usage.
“I would say my relationship [with marijuana] is not one of abuse, and I think I’m safe, even though I accept that it’s not safe to do it in and of itself,” Max said. “[My sister] knew what she was doing, so I felt a lot safer because I started with her. I use weed every two to three weeks, and I plan beforehand every time. I’ve stayed at a friend’s house to make sure that I am not doing anything stupid. [Or, I’ll] get myself home through long walks to ‘walk it off’, which is definitely effective for calming down after.”
Culture
Often, students try using marijuana out of curiosity and its presence among their peer groups.
“I knew one of my friends [used marijuana] and we were hanging out,” Alice said. “They asked [if I wanted] to try it and [I was curious]. That’s when I started.”
The prevalence of substance use amongst peers can affect a student’s choice to continue using marijuana.
“I can see myself using [marijuana in the future],” Elsa said. “Everyone around me uses it. It’s fun to do with friends on occasion, to relax. I’m just around it all the time. It doesn’t really have a negative stigma in my life, so I don’t see why I would stop.”
Similarly, growing up around people who use marijuana can impact one’s usage.
“My dad actually is a substance abuser,” Max said. “My sister and I found his stash [of] weed, shrooms and molly. [Using marijuana] is almost a way of me being able to [tolerate] [his substance abuse]. It makes me feel less bad that I’m doing it if he is.”
Effects
Students described marijuana’s effect as a sense of euphoria or relaxation, usually accompanied by heightened sensory perception.
“Around 20 minutes after you take it, you feel everything in your body,” said junior *Tom. “[When] you smile, your cheeks will start hurting, and when you talk a lot, your jaw starts hurting, but it feels good when you’re doing it. When you touch somebody you feel like you can actually feel it, [even though] it’s the same as normal touching. A lot of times when I’m with friends, I’ll just start smiling for no reason, and everything becomes funnier, and everything feels more bright.”
For some students, marijuana can have a calming effect.
“Weed has the power to make me feel like nothing’s going wrong in life,” Max said. “I’ve just accepted it and then just tried to make me as happy as possible as I can in this situation, knowing it’s not going to change.”
On the other end of the spectrum, marijuana can also cause emotions such as anxiety and paranoia to feel more intense.
“When you get anxiety, and you’re high, [that feeling] becomes way worse,” Tom said. “When your heart sinks, it physically hurts, and you start thinking about all the outcomes that you wouldn’t be thinking of when you’re sober. Some things sound so stupid, but they sound realistic when you’re high. [You might think] a meteorite is going to come hit you – that’s obviously not going to happen, but you might think of that when you’re high.”
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, taking large doses of marijuana can also be correlated with short-term effects of acute psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions. Additionally, marijuana dependency, especially among those with other risk factors, such as family history or genetics, may also be associated with future long-term psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia.
In 2013, Di Forti et al. published a study in which they found that those using marijuana on a daily basis were five times more likely to be diagnosed with psychotic disorders as a result of marijuana usage compared to non-users. Additionally, marijuana users aged 15 or below were also found to have higher risks of developing psychotic disorders, with a popular theory being that the developing brain is more susceptible to such effects of marijuana usage.
Smoking vs. Edibles
The delay in feeling the effects of edibles can lead to them having a more intense effect than smoking.
“It’s common that someone takes a bite of [an edible] and [doesn’t] feel anything, so they take two more, they take five more,” Fullerton said. “Later, as the body’s breaking down everything they just took, it may cause a very intense reaction. [Even though edibles] might be safer for your lungs than smoking, it tends to be riskier just because you don’t know how much is in it.”
Accessibility
Dr. Jessamy Cadigan, a Tobacco Use Prevention Education therapist for the San Mateo Union High School District, speaks on the increasing accessibility of marijuana.
“The internet has made it really accessible,” Cadigan said. “It seems to be easy to get around 21 or older requirements. [And also now], somebody can buy it, give it to the plug, [or drug dealer] and the plug sells it to the students.”
Students also mentioned the role that social media has in accessibility.
“There’s a lot of people that sell marijuana,” Ava said. “There are plugs on [social media] and you can just contact them.”
Still, many students find it necessary to practice caution when finding and obtaining marijuana, especially after considering the recent fentanyl crisis, in which drugs mixed with deadly doses of fentanyl have increased in production. According to the National Vital Statistics Report, there were 18,335 deaths related to fentanyl in 2016. In 2021, the number rose to 70,601, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
“You have to be very careful of edibles that could be laced with fentanyl,” said senior *Alan. “You want to make sure you’re getting them from a place that’s trusted, like a dispensary. You don’t want to get them from a person who made them in their backyard, because it could be laced. I have friends that know people over eighteen with a [medical] card that can go to a dispensary, so that’s a much safer way.”
Prevention
In the end, a change in marijuana abuse comes down to the prevention and treatment programs focused for adolescents. SMUHSD continues to provide resources such as the Vaping Awareness Prevention and Education program, Substance Use Program, and Brief Intervention, designed to increase student awareness and knowledge around drug usage and provide brief counseling for students with low-level substance abuse.
However, these resources may not be reflected state and nationwide.
“We don’t have enough adolescent treatment programs to deal with the problem,” Eiland said. “We don’t have a good transition from leaving a treatment program, and then having a reentry into school. That’s the problem, … [when the student] can’t go back to their original peer group, they don’t have any other social activities, they feel lost, and they go back and start using [drugs] again.”
