Reasons for using Marihuana and frequency of its use

The theme of my bachelor thesis is called Reasons for Using Marihuana and the Frequency of its Use. No other drug divides the professional public as much as marihuana does. New findings of international research lead to increasingly hot discussions to what extent marihuana is harmful to health and, especially, why it is so popular with young people. It remains an alarming fact that experiments with marihuana occur at lower and lower ages. Cases of first use of cannabis before the age of thirteen are no exception nowadays. Thanks to continuing scientific research, information on cannabis drugs increases, but the sufficient amount of the newly obtained data may be doubted because all prevention efforts fail especially with marihuana. On the one hand, this drug is presented as harmless and its risks are played down, and, on the other hand, absurd deterring myths are made up. This bachelor thesis investigates the motives that lead young people to using cannabis drugs, and the extent of awareness of health risks resulting from its use. The theoretical part of this thesis deals with factors that increase the risk of experimenting and thus the resulting use of marihuana, as well as the actual motives of the use of cannabis. Last but not least, it describes individual health risks. The theoretical part also deals with the theory of marihuana as the initiation drug. The investigation aim of this thesis is to find out the motives leading to the use of cannabis, and to try to survey the knowledge of health risks of marihuana users. To achieve these aims, I used the qualitative research by means of the conversation method. There are altogether eight questions concerning these areas: the circumstances and motive of the first time use of marihuana, circumstances under which the user consumes the drug, negative experiences caused by acute intoxication, the main motive of cannabis use at present, further the knowledge of health risks connected with the use of the drug and other habit-forming substances, the theory of marihuana of the gateway drug and making marihuana legal. The research set consists of secondary school pupils. Four hypotheses were established on the basis of the research results. Hypothesis No. 1: Risks connected with the use of marihuana are underestimated by the users themselves. Hypothesis No. 2: Adolescents using marihuana do not have sufficient knowledge of health risks. Hypothesis No. 3: The negative effect of marihuana (bad trip) does not motivate most of its users to abstain from it. Hypothesis No. 4: The most frequent motive of the first time use is curiosity