Negative long term mental health effects from using Cannabis at young age

[keepkratomlegal]

Is it possible to cause permanent depression from smoking marijuana before the brain is fully developed? I started smoking marijuana at age 14. I became severely addicted to it. It got to the point where i couldnt experience any sort of pleasure unless i was high. I knew something was wrong, but i was young and dumb. I quit for a long period of time when i was about 16/17. I then fell into a very deep depression. I had severe anhedonia, and still do, although not nearly as bad. Has anyone else experienced this or know anything about it? Please help

 

[The Network]

Absolutely. Don't do it. I fully support people under 18 not being able to weed, and it should be strongly discouraged until you're at least in your early twenties. It's not even a question, developing minds don't need that shit.

 

[Chon]

I think so. Introducing any psychoactive substance to a developing brain will affect development as far as I know. I agree that people should be encouraged to wait until 20s at least.

 

[Bagseed]

I agree that it is probably not the best idea for teenagers to smoke a lot of weed. Does it always do great damage to ones mental stability? I don't know. My guess is that other life experiences, especially traumatic ones will factor in as well, at least I think this is the case for me personally. Either way, in hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent the vast majority of my time high from 17/18 until my early twenties, but alas, the damage is done, so I just need to deal with it. Nowadays, even if I smoke daily, at least the amount I smoked is much much less. And for a few weeks now, I reduced to maybe a couple of times a week instead of every day.

Will teenagers find a way to get high? Probably less, but I still think it should be discouraged and sale to minors be prohibited.

 

[The Network]

I agree that it is probably not the best idea for teenagers to smoke a lot of weed. Does it always do great damage to ones mental stability? I don't know. My guess is that other life experiences, especially traumatic ones will factor in as well, at least I think this is the case for me personally. Either way, in hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent the vast majority of my time high from 17/18 until my early twenties, but alas, the damage is done, so I just need to deal with it. Nowadays, even if I smoke daily, at least the amount I smoked is much much less. And for a few weeks now, I reduced to maybe a couple of times a week instead of every day.

Will teenagers find a way to get high? Probably less, but I still think it should be discouraged and sale to minors be prohibited.

Drug education in schools should change from "drugs r bad don't do them" to "95% of you are going to try something at some point, here's why you need to wait until you're an adult to make that decision". Couldn't come up with specifics but there are plenty of ways it could be taught.