By: Reese Yan
Have you ever heard of cannabis? Cannabis is a type of drug people use. Although it can be used for medicinal purposes many states prohibit the use of marijuana because it can affect your health. Though many people used cannabis, some didn’t face the serious consequences as Elysse did.
Elysse was 14 when she first started vaping cannabis. The cannabis didn’t smell, which made it easy to hide from her parents. Though she didn’t like it at first, on the second try, she became addicted. At the time, Elysse was still young, so she didn’t know how marijuana could affect her. As Elysse kept smoking, she said the euphoria was insane. Although she thought everything that happened was somewhat “hilarious,” the euphoria started to disappear. The marijuana started to make Elysse anxious and sad. One day when Elysse was showering, she suddenly fainted, then woke up an hour later. Her addiction made Elysse take it a couple of times every single day, which caused Elysse to have symptoms.
A year after Elysse started smoking, Elysse’s parents found out and took her to the hospital to get checked. When the doctor took the test, he found out that she was vomiting because of high marijuana use. The results surprised Elysse’s parents, but it wasn’t for Elysse because when she was at the mall, Elysse said that she vomited about 20 times in 2 hours.” I felt like my body was levitating”. After Elysse got out of the hospital her parents made her go to a program to get rid of her addiction.
When Elysse got into college, her addiction to marijuana was over. But soon after she got into college, Elysse saw many people vaping and doing drugs. So eventually, Elysse relapsed. When Elysse started doing the drug again, she found the drug not as addicting as before. She knew the drug was bad for her, so Elysse stopped doing the drug and threw it away. Ever since then, Elysse never took cannabis again.
Unlike all the other users of the cannabis, Elysse’s symptoms of the drug weren’t the worst. For example, Johnny was the same age as Elysse when he first started smoking. Unlike Elysse, Johnny didn’t hide the fact that he was doing drugs. When Johny confessed to using marijuana at the age of 14, his mother said to herself, “Oh well, it’s just weed. Thank God it wasn’t cocaine.” At the time both Johnny and his mother, Laura, didn’t know the side effects of marijuana. Initially, Johnny didn’t have any mental problems, and instead, he was exceeding at school. However, Johnny started using high potency marijuana products multiple times a day. By the time Johnny was in college, he had been through various addiction treatment programs. He had become so paranoid that he thought the mob was after him and his college was a base for the F.B.I.. After staying at the mental hospital for several days, the doctors were sure Johnny had a severe case of THC abuse. He has prescribed an antipsychotic medication which helped make Johny better, but he stopped taking it. In 2019, Johnny sadly passes away after jumping from a six-story building. A few days before this happened, Johnny had told his mom that the marijuana had officially ruined his mind and life, adding, “I’m sorry, and I love you.”
Despite Elysse using cannabis, she was still able to control herself from using any more of the drug. If she continued to use the drug, she would have symptoms of lifelong psychiatric disorder, depression, suicide, changes in brain anatomy, connectivity, and poor memory. Furthermore, even using a bit of cannabis will affect you later on. Don’t use cannabis at all; it always ends badly.