To drug or not to drug?

Marijuana. Weed. Cannabis. Dagga. Same drug, same effects, same debate: should dagga be legalized? Marijuana has been around for ages, and now it is in every society in the world, including many schools. Even our own school. Known for its “high”, it has become extremely popular among teenagers. We all have friends who use it; in fact, it’s hard to find teenagers who don’t use it! As a teenager, I will give my naïve-16 year old opinion on some questions that are often thrown around about weed: Why do teenagers like marijuana so much?

In  my opinion,  teenagers are just bored beings who want something else to do other than their boring Maths homework, and of course the all-important; peer pressure. Marijuana has been glamorised in the media and entertainment industry by superstars from Justin Bieber to Lady Gaga. The sooner adults can accept that weed has become ‘cool’, the sooner we can actually get over it. Just take a look around your school and you will see it’s the ‘popular kids’ (as much as I hate that phrase) who talk about getting high all the time (like all the time) and the clean kids are seen as nerds. All these kids want to be “King Cannabis and Princess High”.

Why are so many teens supporting the legalization of weed? There are teens who like marijuana so much that they would advocate for the legalisation of weed if they could. “Dude, weed has some really cool medicinal effects like pain relief, helping people with AIDS and cancer and whatnot!”  This is a quintessential argument of this group. This argument irks me. It really does irk me to my core. Not that it’s dishonest, I just feel that a lot of these teens, and adults, don’t really care about helping those people but are rather using the issue as an excuse for the legalisation of weed so that they can get high without worrying about legal consequences. Because the last time I checked, you are smoking weed to get high not to benefit your health. I’m not saying that these are not good reasons to further the research into the benefits of weed, but I believe that teens should just be honest with their intentions when making a case for the legalisation of weed.

After some serious weed discipline issues at our school, there have been tough ramifications and serious discipline strategies put in place to stop isolated incidents from turning into a problem. So why the tough consequences if weed isn’t “that bad”?  Are our teachers are over-reacting? Our teachers are discouraging us from using an illegal substance! Yes, they are over-reacting. Our teachers are stopping us from taking a drug with disputed long term medical effects! Yes, they are definitely over-reacting. Our teachers are stopping us from making a decision to do a psychoactive substance! Yes, they are most definitely over-reacting. Hopefully you have caught on the sarcasm by now.

“To Drug or not to drug?”, now that is the question. You are most likely going to be offered weed as a teen and it’s up to you to make an informed decision. Make sure you know the consequences of choosing to do and not do it and you are willing to take responsibility for your actions.

Say yes to saying no?

Written by Jude Wells, Grade 11