Drug Lies/Myths and Truths. Personal Experience. Why teens turn to Hard Drugs

Good morning my friends.  Funny story.  I woke up about 1 am this morning for a drink and went to do a quick check on our local news site.  This article I came across infuriated me. So I spent over an hour trying to write a response that I could leave in the comment section.  I went to upload and ran into several obstacles.

So now 4 hours later I'm just going to stay awake because I need to be up in an hour for work. Anyways, long story short, I posted this under 4 different comments and under two different login profiles to get it to fit and now i'm afraid the moderators will not allow it on the site so I wanted to share it here so my entire morning will not be a complete waste.  

Here is the link to the article. http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=37911295&nid=1009&title=3-steps-to-gett...

Here was my response I came up with, written for a Utah/Mormon audience.

What a load of Garbage. I feel very strongly about this and created and account just so I could post this and bring some sense to this forum. I am a very experienced drug user (all types) and a self/fully recovered meth addict.  I hope not to sound too arrogant but I can tell instantly by reading the comments that none of you know what your talking about and have never touched a drug in your life.  I was caught at 17 years smoking a cigarette and sentenced to drug and alcohol/tobacco classes and at that time in my life I had been a recreational user of marijuana since the age of 12(and nothing else). The first thing I was taught is how marijuana is so dangerous because it stays in your system for 30 days and that a pilot that may smoke MJ will be mentally incapacitated 28 days later.  That lie is one of the biggest contributors, sending our young teens off of "The Soft Drug" (marijuana) and onto the "Hard Drugs" (meth, cocaine, ecstacy, heroin, perscription pills, dramamine, anti-depressents and Synthetic MJ). The truth that every teen learns from that lie is that any possible drug excluding marijuana is out of your system in 72 hours so logically to a teen it tells them replace marijuana for any other drug possible so as not to get caught with a MONTHLY piss test. They even teach in treatment facilities that marijuana is as dangerous as heroin and countless teens, knowing this is a complete lie, use that as justification to switching to hard drugs. Its the courts and treatment facilities that are causing a mass exodus off of Marijuana and onto every other drug.  I have lost many, many friends to drug overdoses in the last decade all of which due to perscription pain-killers and heroin(chemically identical).  Meth will not KILL your teen like perscription pills and heroin will. Meth will turn them into the living-dead but at least they'll still be alive. In my opinion it's the same with crack and cocaine as with meth.  Marijuana is the thing that I owe my life to getting off these horrible drugs. Every drug-addict/teen knows that marijuana is not Dangerous. That's another huge lie that marijuana is dangerous. "Dangerous" in definition with a drug-addict or with reality means "Deadly".

Now to put things into perspective I will list my personal Danger-scale 1-100.
Marijuana - 0  zero deaths recorded "EVER" in history(habit-forming, non addictive)  Idaho Potatoes-3(can cause death in 24 hours),  Caffeine-6, Aspirin-12,   Ritalin/Adderal-25(low dose, clean meth),  Alcohol-50(many deaths a year, can cause Joy, Anger,Violence)  Synthetic Marijuana-70(I've personally witnessed people go into seisures instantly after smoking this stuff, all to avoid a dirty piss test, this chemical is constantly changing because as soon as it's legislated illegal, the makers slightly alter the chemical compound and then legally classify it as a different chemical and it takes a year for the laws to catch up)  Tobacco-75(I failed to quit since the age of 16,extremely deadly,slow kill) Perscription painkillers/Heroin-80(opiate-based)  Suicide by firearm-100

Now, I mentioned that I used Marijuana to get off of hard drugs(meth). I had never used heroin but I am a very experienced, first-hand, observer. Heroin has much more severe withdrawl symptoms but its all the same when getting "Clean". When I was on meth daily(age 17-25) over the years I had developed a hatred for marijuana because whenever I smoked it, I became tired and hungry so I would use marijuana as a sleeping pill. I would come home to my parents starved, after a week binge on meth, smoke a big bowl of weed and fall asleep for 24-36 hours. After continuing this pattern for years I realized that the marijuana was forcing my body to physically speak to me!  I would smoke it and get extremely thirsty, hungry, and tired all symptoms that I would blame on the marijuana and not my lifestyle.  Marijuana is key to self analyzing and thought.  That is Huge when recovering from drugs. Thought is something that drug addicts are completely starved of.  When I quit I forced myself to the mindset which I call "Striclty Stoner" which means "Marijuana Only".  This saved my life and soul!  There is nothing wrong with a drug addict, sleeping and eating and thinking. Nothing in my opinion could be better for a recovering addict. Yet these are the "dangers" that all these treatment centers teach about marijuana. They claim marijuana is dangerous because it might make you lazy, or you might "overthink" simple tasks. I totally disagree, something is dangerous if it can kill you and I would argue that in most situations, overthinking translates to being, "over-cautious".  Yes, Marijuana can and will be Counter-Productive when used by your teen all day, every day but only counter productive if they have never used any other drug before.  If its used to get off a hard drug it is nothing but PRODUCTIVE. Now that I'm older and free from drug addiction I still smoke marijuana once-twice daily in the evenings when i'm home from work or before bed and "to me" it's the equivelant of drinking a beer or two a day, which I totally agree that it's habit forming, but certainly not DANGEROUS.  A habit and addiction are completely different.  I frequently go 1-2 weeks without smoking marijuana and although I don't like to, I can't afford it when money is tight, so I have to. Nevertheless there are no withdrawl symptoms. However with cigarettes. My wife and I both smoke and have attempted to quit together, multiple times and it has almost led to physical violence between us. Tobacco withdrawls causes so much anger because your resent the cigarette and hate yourself for wanting one and it has caused me to take all that hate and anger out on my wife and vise-versa.  And with cigarettes, I will always have money for cigarettes one way or the other. It's an extremely expensive habit.  Although not as expensive as Drugs.

Also if your teen/family/friend has anger/hate issues with anything or anyone. Especially someone having moment of "Rage" suggest marijuana to them.  It is extremely humbling.   It lowers your pride and takes away your anger and replaces it with compassion.  That's another reason the government claims it's so dangerous because it will take away our troops "Will to Kill".  Now I agree there are many times when that can be considered counterproductive, to take away the will to kill or the will to fight for something.  Yet, in this day and age our society needs a whole lot more compassion and thought. To an addict who has lost everything, in his mind, he still has his pride left and that pride is the one obstacle that seperates the addict from the family and convinces the addict that he is right.  Create an environment so your addict feels comfortable smoking marijuana with your knowledge/presence.  Once that barrier is broken and your addict is "high on marijuana"  sit down and have a productive conversation in a way that will not offend their pride.  Some talks you can't avoid not hurting their pride and that's where the marijuana comes in.   Take baby steps.   Just make them listen to you and be loving.  They cannot un-hear what you tell them and will spend countless hours alone thinking about the conversations you have had with them even though you do not know about it.  It may even take five-ten years, like it did with me, but eventually they will realize that you were right and that you love them and never stopped loving them. Encourage Thought and Self Analyzement.    I pray for whomever may be reading this and I wish your teen a Happy and Drug Free Future.