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NEWS: The Age - 16/04/07 'Teen dope users life's future losers'

hoptis

hoptis

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Teen dope users 'life's future losers'
Farah Farouque
April 16, 2007

CANNABIS users who started smoking as teenagers are more likely to suffer long-term harm, including poor mental health, than drinkers who started using alcohol as adolescents, a major study has found.

Heavy users of marijuana are also more likely to graduate to other drugs such as amphetamines and ecstasy than are teenage binge drinkers.

Involving nearly 2000 Victorian high school students aged 14 or 15, the landmark study has traced their progress since 1992, and provides the first comparison of the consequences of the two substances commonly used in teenage social situations.

Researcher George Patton, who conducted the study for Melbourne University's Centre for Adolescent Heath, said that while both alcohol and cannabis carried health risks, the overwhelming evidence was that cannabis was "the drug for life's future losers".

"It's the young people who were using cannabis in their teens who were doing really badly in terms of their mental health," Professor Patton said.

"They were also less likely to be working or be qualified or in a relationship and more likely to be using other substances such as ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine and even tobacco.

"Effectively, for a substantial number of high-risk users in our sample, cannabis was the drug that was preferred as teenagers."

Broadly, the study confirms alcohol and cannabis are commonly first used in the vulnerable adolescent years.

Of the 1943 survey participants, from 45 private and public schools around the state, 80 per cent said they had used alcohol or cannabis by the age of 17.

Almost two-thirds had tried cannabis before they turned 18.

Strikingly, those defined as heavy users from the age of 15 or 16 had by then selected one substance — alcohol or cannabis — over the other and tended to stick with their drug of choice into their 20s.

Professor Patton said the findings reflected the changing use and attitudes to cannabis by teenagers.

"Twenty or 30 years ago, cannabis was uncommonly used by teenagers," he said. "Alcohol use is still more prevalent, but cannabis use has become widespread … in many countries."

While patterns of use intensified as they grew older, only one in 25 survey participants were classified as taking either alcohol or cannabis at "very high risk levels" in their teens.

This was defined as using cannabis every day or in the case of alcohol, exceeding 43 standard drinks per week for boys or 28 for girls — more than the guidelines for very risky drinking by adults.
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The Age
 
Probly because

EVERBODY fucking binge drinks when there 16

Infact most of them drink so hard because there afraid to try drugs (misinformation makes it a scary choice for some) rather than admit fear of trying them they start to pay out on people who do to make there choice seem like the right one

Ofcourse people who smoked pot are more likly to try other drugs Everyone else is still afriad to smoke pot let alone something a lil harder

oddly enough the few who choose not to try because they dont want to rather than because there afraid tend not to mind what people do to themselves


(no that im saying u have to be brave to try drugs stupid substitutes fairly often or in alot of cases just curious
 
Researcher George Patton, who conducted the study for Melbourne University's Centre for Adolescent Heath, said that while both alcohol and cannabis carried health risks, the overwhelming evidence was that cannabis was "the drug for life's future losers".
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Some really unimflamatory, scientific analysis there 8)

I wonder if thats what Mr. Patton wrote in the conclusion of his final report: "the drug for life's future losers"? 8o
 
Does any one know where I can find the report mentioned in this glorious piece of journalism?
 
Losers? It's because it makes you fucking lazy, I'm sure there are many stoners out there with brilliant ideas but absolutely no motivation to get out there and do something about it. Thus, producing 'life's losers'.
 
First they say it causes mental illnesses, then they turn around and calls the people suffering them 'losers'... Way to stigmatise the mentally ill 8)
 
people who reject a societies laws more than likely arent going to end up as what that society calls successfull
 
CANNABIS users who started smoking as teenagers are more likely to suffer long-term harm, including poor mental health, than drinkers who started using alcohol as adolescents, a major study has found.

i must be proper fucked then...!cause i have been smoking dope and drinking piss for the last 10+ years.....!

the title should read teens who study politics lifes future fucking wankers....!!!!!
 
"It's the young people who were using cannabis in their teens who were doing really badly in terms of their mental health," Professor Patton said.

i also think they should look a lil more closely at why so many teenagers are smoking sooo much dope then....?maybe because their struggling living with mental health problems to start with.......?any1 think of that.........?
 
Exactly Right. The missing link that no parent or adult wants to investigate is "Why are my kids using drugs?'. They dont want to look into it too deeply because they might find that their actions or inactions played a dramatic part in the child wanting to escape from reality so frequantly.

I noticed that the first stoners at my school all had personal demons and skelatons in the closet about things that happened in their childhood that they had no controll over or they couldn't solve the issue in a standard fashion, head on. This caused them to want to escape all the time.

I do believe that mixing cannabis with tobacco is a recipe for ultimate de-motivaton. You want that fat nicotine hit every time your reminded of it, and that nice cannabis glow that follows, you end up smoing more and more cannabis which leaves you in a state of sedation. In this state some people come up with brilliant Ideas and theory's that are never taken notice of.

The thought that your doing something thing wrong and illegal kicks off the paranoia cycle which can lead to hours of self doubt and an unsurity of the positives you have and have access too, also at one stage or another self respect leaves your mind. Again people get away from these feeling with more cannabis and it compounds the problem.

Cannabis is great when smoked casually and not recklessly. It stimulates the brain in ways we can't understand and there are countless cases of this being used for creative benefit. People wouldn't use the drug if it was just bad, what the main stream is failing to strike a balance with is the fact that there is benificial merits to cannabis and there are side effects, just like every action has a re-action. The cannabis wont be lagalised because to many people are getting big funding from governaments for prohibition and if that funding goes from legislation or "Tolerance" than people will be without work.

They need to start treating it as a mental health issue by education and research into the positives and negatives equally, its that simple.

And as a side thought, can you really blame kids from wanting to go "off into their own world" with all the negative things that are all over the t.v, if its not september 11 on the news its a high school shooting, or WW2 on discovery or CSI or some murder show, or global warming or all these rich fuckers with more than any human needs showing it off. Fix the real problems in society and everything else will fall into line. You know its true.
 
"It's the young people who were using cannabis in their teens who were doing really badly in terms of their mental health," Professor Patton said.
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This says it for me. Maybe there should be more in the way if giving these people help before they start smoking weed everyday as teenagers, instead of telling them they'll be 'tomorrow's losers'. I'm sure that will really help their problems 8)
 
There's no way anyone can ever convince me that the odd joint every couple of weeks is more dangerous then teens who go out and get smashed on consecutive weekends.

In fact, when I can relax and smoke a J once a month on a saturday night with a couple of friends, it chills me out, it's a "treat." It makes me put in more effort in school (if that makes sense.)

I guess it's frequent users who get more fucked up, and i'd understand how... when used in moderation however, i see no problem with weed at all.. its stoners.

Then again, im not a "stoner," so maybe im insulting people who do use cannabis frequently and do infact live very fulfilling lives, and are succesful. I wouldn't know how it is because I don't use it as much as that.

So what i'm saying is, I dont feel as if im going to be "tommorows looser" at all.

Anyways, fuck the system.

-Infected
 
^I cocnur.....i had my time of being a "stoner" when i was a teenager, i got through that, i got a degree at uni, i held down a stable job, kept my parents happy etc.

Now days, i smoke the odd joint maybe once a month, hold down a very responsible job and am on the track to a successful career, as are all my friends who went through pretty much the same.....we all just grew out of weed in the end.

So in essence, i think this whole study is floored & biassed. Sure those who abuse weed rediculously are more likely to fail in the future, but at the end of the day life is what you make of it and your decisions are the key to the future.
 
I'd rather be a loser in this stupid society... to be a winner means fucking people over, speaking crap, playing ridiculous games.... I'm a proud loser.
 
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