Drug Rehab Texas

Marijuana/Hash – Is it harmless?

According to the Texas Department  of Health Services statistics for the year 2006, there were 6,665 people admitted into state funded substance abuse problem for abuse of marijuana and hash.  This is out of 55,155 admissions total for that year into state funded substance abuse treatment programs.

There were a couple of very interesting points regarding those statistics.  One of the statistics for admissions into the substance abuse centers is how many of the patients admitted  are involved with criminal justices.. For those admitted for marijuana and has, the percentage of those involved with criminal justice is 47%. This percentage is higher than any other type of abuse including heroin, and amphetamines.  The age at which use was started is the very lowest at 15.  Average of first use for those admitted for treatment for alcoholism is 16 years old. Age of those admitted for marijuana or hash addicted is also lower than any of the other categories at 27 years old.

These statistics from Texas certainly gives food for thought in the debate to the degree of harm that marijuana and has h cause, whether it should be legalized and treated and what message should be send to our kids and youth regarding these drugs.  There are celebrities such as Bill Marr who on his show makes little to nothing to smoking pot. In fact he promotes it as something good to do. How can that be the case if over 6000 youth have to be admitted just into the state funded programs in Texas for treatment and when almost half of them are involved in the criminal justice system. 

I would say that it is a serious detriment to a persons live that they have to gone to treatment for substance abuse and be criminally involved. Those two things often makes it very hard for someone to get a job. It would be interesting to see how many of these who start using marijuana and hash at a young age even make it through a college education or are able to obtain decent jobs.

Holland is an example of legalization of marijuana. I am familiar only with one treatment program in that country, but I do know that they have a very hard time getting addicts actually drug free as they think once they are off, for example, opiates, they can continue smoking pot. It requires a lot of education to tell someone that a substance that you can buy legally is so harmful.

The Texas statistics quoted here make it clear that there is harm for youth in using marijuana. What can we do? One thing for parents to consider is that if they know that their child is using these drugs, should seek treatment and not brush it off as something “normal” that all kids do. The other thing is to educate our youth on the complete truth about all drugs. If they really know, most of them will make sane decisions on their own.