Losing our youth to depression

July 5, 2:10 PMPortland Drug Policy ExaminerJohn English

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Does it matter which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Not when the result either way, is loss of our children, either by overdose or by suicide! And certainly not if you’re their parent!

Suicide takes too many of our youth, so does depression . . . whether it leads to harder drugs or not. More and more often, as users tell their peers that marijuana is medicinal, we lose more of our precious children!

Users pout and shout, that marijuana doesn’t kill anyone! Subsequently, as they draw more youth to become users, more are enslaved, anchored in depression! Some get out; some cannot.

The marijuana user is in a constant state of depression interspersed with “short bursts of feeling almost normal again.” The user, when he’s reached out and achieved that “high,” he has a temporary reprieve from that constant, marijuana-induced state of depression, but it returns as the “high” fades.

That’s the cause, the scenario . . . ; users seek, the non-depressed state, they perceive as a "high". They're wrong; it's the state they were in before - it's the absence of depression. Over and over, they’re drawn into the ‘fog of marijuana addiction’ which has caused them to perceive it wrongly. The user has unknowingly, only taken a step down a rung, on the ladder of normalcy!

Addiction can be psychological as well; the users’ “brain’s receptors” is where addiction resides - it drives the craving mechanism - the “reward sensation.” The user who seeks the “marijuana high” – he only wants that feeling of being almost normal again.

I can’t count how many parents I’ve cried with. Ian’s death is not thought to be suicide, but others are – lots of others! Most, are accidental overdoses; some are intentional.

Here's the intro to a good website - a resource.

“My son Ian died on September 10, 1996 in his sleep of an overdose. He was only twenty years old. After he died, one by one, his friends began to come to me. We were all in such pain. I sat and listened, torn between anger and agony, as slowly they began to talk about what had really been going on.

Anger doesn't help. Ian's friends and his family have to heal. We have to find the courage to speak before it is too late for so many other young people like my son who are in danger of becoming addicted to drugs. Ian was bright, handsome, athletic and popular. If this could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.”

please after you’ve read these two paragraphs from Ginger, please see: http://www.couragetospeak.org/intro_difficulttimes.htm