2) What Gets in the Way of Happiness? What are our most unhealthy habits...
One thing that is important for all students to consider, is how you will handle friends/family offering you marijuana. That's our topic for today.
We'll be watching an interactive version of a film called Cycles: http://www.cyclesfilm.com/story.html.
- The film is based on research projects at UBC, the school of nursing, and focused on teens in BC who use pot frequently.
- Keep in mind many students in BC have never tried pot.
- The purpose of the film is to engage in a balanced discussion about decision making and marijuana use.
- Herbal cigarettes were used during the film-making.
- You will need a pencil/pen to complete the interactive worksheet.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/your-kids-brain-on-pot-the-real-effects-of-marijuana-on-teens/article21127612/
"Fully 28 per cent of Canadian children aged 11 to 15 admitted to using cannabis at least once in the past year (compared to 23 per cent in the United States, where pot is legal in the states of Colorado and Washington, and 17 per cent in the weed-friendly Netherlands), a 2013 United Nations Children’s Fund study found. As much as 5 per cent of Canadian adolescents – and as much as 10 per cent of Grade 12 students – smoke pot every day, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse."
The primary concern is that because your brain continues to develop until you are 25 years old, that marijuana use will impinge and retard brain development.
"A more recent study, published in April in the Journal of Neuroscience, found structural changes in the brains of 18- to 25-year-olds who smoked pot at least once per week, compared to those of youth with little to no history of marijuana use.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers from Northwestern University detected alterations in brain regions involved in emotion and reward processing. The heavier the marijuana use, the greater the abnormalities in both brain regions, they found."
"In a 2012 report, researchers from Duke University analyzed data from Dunedin and found that the earlier and more frequently a person smoked pot, the greater the loss of intelligence by age 38. Compared to their IQs measured at age 13, people who had started using cannabis as teens and maintained a daily pot habit into adulthood had, on average, a six-point drop in IQ. The decline was not trivial: By age 38, their average IQ was below that of 70 per cent of their peers, according to the report, published in the journal PNAS."
((Introduce interactive questions...))"In a 2012 report, researchers from Duke University analyzed data from Dunedin and found that the earlier and more frequently a person smoked pot, the greater the loss of intelligence by age 38. Compared to their IQs measured at age 13, people who had started using cannabis as teens and maintained a daily pot habit into adulthood had, on average, a six-point drop in IQ. The decline was not trivial: By age 38, their average IQ was below that of 70 per cent of their peers, according to the report, published in the journal PNAS."
3) Discussion - remember RICE (Respect, Involvement, Confidentiality, Equality)
4) Dilemma Worksheet - Groups
