The 1994 Monitoring the Future survey showed that marijuana use by 8th, 10th, and 12th graders rose for the third straight year. Daily use by 8th graders doubled. The Centers for Disease Control report in their 1993 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys that approximately 7 out of every 25 high school girls have tried marijuana, and approximately 4 out of 25 are current users. Marijuana affects complex motor skills, which can significantly impair performance, including driving ability. Car crashes remain one of the biggest killers of teenage girls.
Marijuana can impair judgment.
Chronic marijuana smoking can lead to impaired lung function, including symptoms of bronchitis and increased susceptibility to illness and infection. Young women who use marijuana regularly report that they are unable to maintain satisfactory grades and performance levels. With chronic marijuana use, a girl's ambitions and dreams can go up in smoke. Preteen to young adolescence represents a particularly vulnerable age for females, a time when values and attitudes are formed and self-esteem is either strengthened or weakened. Girls aged 9 to 14, in transition from childhood to adulthood, are especially susceptible to social and environmental influences.