Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body - Scholastic

The Lows of Getting HighOne teen’s journey from street corner to jail to recoveryCLOSE UP: MARIJUANABy Cate BailyAt 18, Alby Podolski was living anightmare behind bars. He felt he was inconstant physical danger. “I saw people getstabbed,” Alby says. And he experienced dailyindignities. “I couldn’t eat the food they served.The potatoes were like blocks and the meatdidn’t taste like meat,” he says.Believe it or not, gettingarrested was probablythe best thing that couldhave happened to Alby. Itgot him into treatment forhis drug problem.When we spoke toAlby, he was one monthinto his recovery at Daytop,a drug rehabilitation centerin Westchester, NY.GRUDGE AGAINSTTHE WORLDIt all started one summer dayon a street corner in Yonkerswhen Alby was 13. “You needto get your mind right. Hit thisblunt,” a friend said.definitely addicted,” says Alby of his dailyuse of marijuana over a five-year period. For some“Iwaspeople, this is a controversial idea.They argue that marijuana is not addictive.According to NIDA, addiction ischaracterized by “compulsive, at timesuncontrollable, drug craving, seeking, anduse that persist even in the face of extremelynegative consequences.”Dr. Glen Hanson, the Acting Director ofAlby Podolski, 19FORMER MARIJUANA ABUSER / IN TREATMENTAlby didn’t have thestrength to say no. He felt hehad to smoke the blunt (acigar hollowed out andTHE ADDICTION QUESTIONrefilled with marijuana or amix of cocaine and marijuana)to fit in. And he desperatelywanted to belong.His parents had never beenthere for him. They were drugaddicts themselves andcouldn’t handle the demandsof parenting. So, Alby bouncedfrom a foster home to hisgrandmother’s to a grouphome. When he was about 14,his mother died.“I wasn’t supposed togo through this,” Alby says.“I had a grudge againstthe world.”After trying marijuana(also called weed, grass,pot, herb, boom, MaryJane, and chronic) to fitin, Alby kept abusing thedrug because he enjoyedthe high, or intoxicatedfeeling, marijuana creates. “Ithad me in another state ofmind,” he says. “I was relaxed.All my problems seemed likethey were disappearing.”NIDA, says that marijuana is indeed addictive. “I find itironic that people say ‘oh, it's not addictive’ and yet it’s themost commonly used of our illicit [illegal]drugs,” he says.Although Hanson concedes that not everyonewho smokes marijuana becomes addicted, hepoints out that many people experience cravingsfor the drug and have withdrawal symptoms whenthey get off it. “For me, that defines addiction,”he says.ERIC O’CONNELL/TAXI BY GETTY IMAGES(MARIJUANA)6FROM SCHOLASTIC AND THE SCIENTISTS OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES