Friday, September 18, 2009

Myth Busters

Mythbusters: Some Myths You've Heard Before, And Maybe Even Believed, Until Now



Many people say that pot is harmless because it's natural. But tobacco and even poison ivy grows naturally and they have some nasty effects. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the chemical that causes some smokers to develop "tolerance" to its effects, and crave more of the drug, leading to addiction.

Today's marijuana is twice as powerful on average as it was 20 years ago and its effects and risks vary. Also some weed is laced with acid, PCP or even includes chemicals like formaldehyde (yes, that's the stuff they put into corpses and the dissection frogs in biology class).
MYTH: There are no long-term consequences if you smoke weed.
Smoking up can lead to significant health, learning and mental health problems, which can ruin your future. It impairs judgment, which can lead to risky decisions when it comes to sex, reckless driving or doing things that would normally seem stupid to you, like illegal pranks or dares.
Weed can also affect your performance in school and in sports. You may even get kicked off your team completely or lose your driver's license or other privileges if you lose your parents' trust and respect.

MYTH: Magazine models are the ideal and all women should look like them.
Did you know that the average American(I am talking about American because this is where our teens take their greenwich time from, unfortunately!) woman is actually 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 142 pounds? These days you can hardly turn a few pages in a magazine without getting flooded with images of the "perfect" man or woman. But look around – there are all sorts of successful, attractive, interesting people in the world all with different shapes and sizes.
Hadeeth tells us that Allaah do not look at our faces or our forms, but He does look at our deeds and our hearts. Unfortunately all WE do care about is face and forms. Todays Teens have a low self-esteem, and hence are most susceptible to body image pressures and may suffer from eating disorders that are harmful to the body and mind. And without treatment, up to 20 percent of people with serious eating disorders die. With treatment, that number falls to 2 - 3 percent.

MYTH: Smoking pot is safer than smoking cigarettes.
Neither is good for you and here's why: Inhaling burning dried plant smoke into your lungs, whether it's tobacco or pot, is bad for you. Maybe you aren't too worried about cancer at this point in your life, but, just so you know, one marijuana joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one tobacco cigarette. (NIDA)

MYTH: Everyone in high school smokes pot nowadays.
Actually not everyone's smoking pot. The simple fact is that most teenagers do not use marijuana. Among students surveyed in a yearly national survey, fewer than one in five high school seniors has smoked pot in the last month and the trend of teens using marijuana has been down in the past few years. (Monitoring the Future). You will have to believe that the world is a different place than what movies try to make us believe!

MYTH: You can't get addicted to marijuana.
Long-term marijuana use can lead to addiction in some people. Each year, more teens enter treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependence than for all other illicit drugs combined. (NSDUH)

MYTH: Niacin (vitamin B3) can help you pass marijuana drug tests.
Despite what you may have heard, no scientific evidence indicates that taking niacin can alter a urine drug test result for marijuana. And taking excessive amounts of niacin can also cause severe side effects such as hepatotoxicity (serious liver damage). (CDC - Morbidity & Mortality Report, April 20, 2007)