Marijuana is the one illicit drug which is most commonly used in the United States. An amazing fact is that though it is illegal, its usage statistics are the same as that of browsing the Internet. Research quoted in the Computer Industry Almanac showed that in 1998, more than 76.5 million Americans logged onto the Internet. In that year, more than 71 million Americans over the age of 12 admitted that they have used marijuana at least once in their lifetime. This paper starts out by describing the drug, then goes out to talk about the usage trends and demographics. After that, we carry out a detailed discussion on the consequences of marijuana and later, the various treatment and prevention programs prevalent in the U.S (Liguori, Gatto & Robinson, 1998).

Description:
Marijuana is a green, brown, or gray mixture of dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the Cannabis sativa plant. In street slang, it is referred to as pot, herb, weed, grass, boom, Mary Jane, gangster, or chronic. Its stronger variations are sinsemilla, hashish, and hash oil.

It is believed that cannabis sativa is a native plant of India, where it possibly originated in a region just north of the Himalayan mountains. It can grow to a height of between 13 and 18 feet (4 to 5.4 meters). The flowers usually bloom in the time period from late-summer to mid-fall. Hashish, which is more potent than marijuana, is made from the resin of the cannabis flowers.

Marijuana plants comprise more than 400 chemicals, 60 of which fit into a category called cannabinoids, according to the National Institutes of Health. The most proactive chemical in the plant is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It is the chemical to which most of marijuana’s harmful effects are attributed to. THC is known to affect our brain's short-term memory. Marijuana also affects motor coordination, increases your heart rate and raises levels of anxiety. Research has also shown that marijuana contains cancer-causing chemicals typically associated with cigarettes. Marijuana’s effects on the user depend on its strength or potency, which is related to the amount of THC it contains. The THC content of marijuana has been increasing since the 1970s (Liguori, Gatto & Robinson, 1998).

Demographics of Marijuana users:
It has been found in government studies that habitual marijuana use has increased among U.S. adults over the past decade, particularly among young minorities and baby boomers. Statistics show that the prevalence of marijuana abuse or dependence increased from 1.2 percent of adults in 1991-92 to 1.5 percent in 2001-02, or an estimated 3 million adults 18 and over.
Though this might seem trivial, this actually represents an increase of 22 percent, or 800,000 people, as data collected from two nationally representative surveys, that each queried more than 40,000 adults, confirmed.

Among 18- to 29-year-olds, the rate or abuse of dependence remained at a constant rate but among black men and women, it peaked by about 220 percent to 4.5 percent of that population, and by almost 150 percent among Hispanic men, to 4.7 percent. Among all adults ages 45 to 64, the rate increased by an impressive 355 percent, to about 0.4 percent of that population.
The rise in dependence can be attributed to the potency of pot over the past decade. Also, it could be said that baby boomers bring their bad habits with them into old age. Overall use of the drug, that is, casual use and habitual use, remained the same at around 4 percent, or more than 6 million adults.

According to Dr. Nora Volkow, Director National Institute of Drug
Abuse, “This study suggests that we need to develop ways to monitor the continued rise in marijuana abuse and dependence and strengthen existing prevention and intervention efforts.” Programs that target young black and Hispanic adults are particularly needed, she said.

In 2000, the NHSDA estimated that over 3 million, or 13 percent, of the 23 million youths aged 12 to 17 used marijuana. The rate of past year marijuana use was lower for youths compared with the rate for young adults aged 18 to 25 (24 percent), but it was higher than the rate for adults aged 26 or older (5 percent).
Between 1996 and 1999, the number of youths aged 12 to 17 trying marijuana for the first time each year was greater than during the prior 20 years. Approximately 1,690,000 youths first used marijuana during 1996, more than during any other year since 1978.

The recent increase in marijuana use is very broad. Some of the reasons for this shift are young people’s attitudes about how dangerous marijuana is. Self-protection as a motivation seems to work in this realm. But young people have to see the danger as it applies to them and to their behavior. A significant change in the perception of the risk of heavy marijuana use began in 1978. During the years when there were a lot of daily marijuana users, practically every kid knew a user and could observe and learn firsthand about the effects of this drug. Because earlier, there was more success in combating the use of this drug, there is now less opportunity for informal learning to occur: there are fewer young marijuana users from whom to learn vicariously (Tashkin, 1997).

Consequences of Marijuana usage:
Each time a user smokes a marijuana cigarette or ingests marijuana in some other form, THC and other chemicals enter the user's body. The chemicals make their way through the bloodstream to the brain and then to the rest of the body. It is THC which causes the ‘high’ associated with the drug.
The most common way of using marijuana is smoking. Smoking is also the most expedient way to get the THC and other chemicals into the bloodstream. When the smoke from marijuana is inhaled, the THC goes directly to the lungs. Lungs are lined with millions of alveoli, the tiny air sacs where gas exchange occurs. These alveoli have an enormous surface area so they facilitate the entering of the body of THC and other compounds. The smoke is absorbed by the lungs just seconds after inhaling (Pope & Yurgelun-Todd, 1996).

It is often said that marijuana is the one of the safest recreational substances available. This is perhaps true; many reputable scientific studies support the conclusion that cocaine, heroine, alcohol, and even cigarettes are more dangerous to the user’s health than marijuana. In addition, the celebrated pharmacological properties of cannabis have led thirty-six states to permit its use as a therapeutic drug for, among others, those suffering from AIDS; various painful, incurable and debilitating illnesses; the harmful side effects of cancer chemotherapy, and glaucoma. Additional research is being conducted concerning the use of marijuana on the treatment of anxiety and mental disorders (Pope & Yurgelun-Todd, 1996).

But even then, it would be fallacious to conclude that because the chemicals in marijuana have been found to present fewer dangers than some very harmful substances, the medical or recreational use of marijuana is perfectly safe. In a recreational context, marijuana has been shown to affect health, brain function, and memory. And in a medical context, marijuana is like any other powerful prescription drug: it has potentially dangerous side effects.

Smoking marijuana regularly (a joint a day) can damage the cells in the bronchial passages which protect the body against inhaled microorganisms and decrease the ability of the immune cells in the lungs to fight off fungi, bacteria, and tumor cells. For patients with already weakened immune systems, this means an increase in the possibility of dangerous pulmonary infections, including pneumonia, which often proves fatal in AIDS patients (Pope & Yurgelun-Todd, 1996).

Studies further suggest that marijuana is a general "immunosuppressant" whose degenerative influence extends beyond the respiratory system. Regular smoking has been shown to materially affect the overall ability of the smoker’s body to defend itself against infection by weakening various natural immune mechanisms, including macrophages (a.k.a. "killer cells") and the all-important T-cells. Obviously, this suggests the conclusion, which is well-supported by scientific studies, that the use of marijuana as a medical therapy can and does have a very serious negative effect on patients with pre-existing immune deficits resulting from AIDS, organ transplantation, or cancer chemotherapy, the very conditions for which marijuana has most often been touted and suggested as a treatment. It has also been shown that marijuana use can accelerate the progression of HIV to full-blown AIDS and increase the occurrence of infections and Kaposi’s sarcoma. Marijuana use may increase the risk of ectopic (tubal) pregnancies. The researchers studied CB1, a "cannabinoid" receptor that binds the main active chemical for marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In pregnant mice that lacked the gene for the receptor, or in which the receptor was blocked, the embryo failed to go through the oviduct – the tube leading from the ovaries to the uterus. The same thing happened in normal mice when the receptor was over-stimulated (Pope & Yurgelun-Todd, 1996).

Marijuana treatment strategies:
In 1999, the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) recorded more than 220,000 admissions for primary marijuana abuse to publicly funded substance abuse treatment. These represented 14 percent of the 1.6 million admissions for alcohol or drug treatment in these facilities, an increase from 7 percent in 1993. About one third of these admissions from 1993 to 1999 were aged 12 to 17, and another one third were aged 18 to 25. The criminal justice system was a major factor in treatment entry—57 percent of admissions for treatment of marijuana abuse were the result of a judicial process in 1999 compared with 48 percent in 1993 (Tashkin, 1997).

For treatment strategies, the first step for clinicians is to help the patient become motivated to change his relationship to drugs. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), each year 100,000 people seek treatment with a primary (or at least a self-perceived primary) marijuana abuse problem. Without medications to help with detoxification and relapse prevention, health professionals use various approaches to treating patients (Fackelmann, 1997).

There has been significant improvement in this area as until a few years ago, it was difficult to find treatment programs specifically for marijuana users. Treatments for marijuana dependence were much the same as therapies for other drug abuse problems. These include detoxification, behavioral therapies and regular attendance at meetings of support groups, such as Narcotics Anonymous (Fackelmann, 1997).

However, recently, researchers have been testing different ways to attract marijuana users to treatment and help them abstain from drug use. Currently no medications for treating marijuana dependence are available. Treatment programs focus on counseling and group support systems. A marijuana treatment group is typically an abstinence-based group of 10 to 12 persons trying to end their dependence on marijuana In one recent study, 14 groups were started; they met once a week for 14 weeks and were led by two co-therapists. People were able to join without proving that they had stopped smoking pot before requesting assistance; thus, people entered the groups at varying levels of dependence. The intervention was designed to help people quit using marijuana by the fourth week. They were not asked to leave the group if they were unable to completely stop using marijuana Instead, those still using the drug were encouraged by the therapists and group members to continue trying to stop.
Another model for treatment involves one-on-one intervention, followed by an assessment session that provides an overview to the patient, an in-depth discussion about the patient’s use of marijuana and reasons for favoring or opposing quitting and answers to questions the client has about quitting or modifying use.

The above counseling approaches were found to be equally successful. From these studies, drug treatment professionals are learning what characteristics of users are predictors of success in treatment and which approaches to treatment can be most helpful. Further progress in treatment to help marijuana users includes a number of programs set up to help adolescents in particular. Some of these programs are in university research centers, where most of the young clients report marijuana as their drug of choice. Others are in independent adolescent treatment facilities. Family physicians are also a good source for information and help in dealing with adolescents' marijuana problems (Cornelius, Taylor, Geva & Day, 1995).

Marijuana Education and Prevention Strategies:
A lot of strategies have been implemented to prevent marijuana use. The American Academy of Pediatrics joined hands with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and other prominent national organizations to educate parents, teenagers and children about the harmful of effects of marijuana. The National Institute of Drug Abuse conducted a conference titled National Conference on marijuana use: prevention, treatment and research. In this, they invited a number of noteworthy people to speak about marijuana use in the U.S. and the national drug policy.

However, in spite of a number of measures taken to educate and help prevent use of marijuana which are being carried out since 1979, results have shown that though marijuana use was cut in half, during this time the core rate of heroin and cocaine dependency grew almost two-thirds. And that’s where studies show that hard core addiction, intravenous use and a lot of drug-related violence are happening. Drug abuse control strategies premised on eliminating marijuana correlate with increases in the use of harder drugs. The experience of the 1980s showed that during marijuana famines, some consumers are bound to follow when the markets switch to the more compact, easier to transport, more profitable highly refined drugs.
A lot of marijuana elimination strategies have failed because for one, cannabis is a plant that anyone can grow with earth, water, and air; second, people know that marijuana is less toxic that nicotine and alcohol and it is simply not possible to criminalize the entire population that chooses to consume cannabis products (Pope & Yurgelun-Todd 1996).