I'm 16 years old and I was a varied smoker for three or more years. I've had friends have psychotic episodes due to marijuana; friends go to rehab; and I have friends that smoke marijuana lightly, to excessively. It is a difficult aspect of teenage life for me to escape being witness to.

When I say 'varied', I mean at times I was what some would call a 'light' smoker for a good year, slowly building up the routine, from smoking once a month, to once a week, to a few times a week. Then I'd fall again to once a month, repeating the cycle over and over. I repeated to myself a mental delusion that I'm sure most other people tell themselves when related to anything addictive or harmful: "Just because it happens to other people, doesn't mean it will happen to you."

At one point, towards the end of my three-year life as a marijuana smoker, I even believed that marijuana was beneficial for my emotional and mental health. I had never considered myself an addict. However, it wasn't until towards the end of it all, did I finally start to notice the effects. I was horribly anxious. I had never suffered anxiety before in life, but all of a sudden, coincidentally within the time span I smoked marijuana---not the short-term but the long-term---I found myself becoming paranoid and anxious about mostly everything, especially my own health. I was having very frequent anxiety attacks, usually every day. I wasn't even a heavy smoker.

At the time I was only smoking marijuana probably once every month, to once every couple of weeks. A lump on my neck, to me, was a tumour. Every ache and pain became something much, much worse, to the point where all day, every day, I allowed myself to succumb to paranoia. I had somehow managed to convince myself that I was dying, and spent every day anxiety-ridden. Some days I didn't want to go outside because I was convinced I'd drop dead all of a sudden, due to every lump or rash being something horrible; lethal; something it wasn't.

I was also angry and bitter with the world. I got angry easily---something typical of my uncle, who also had smoked marijuana previously in life---and my relationships with people, especially my family, fell through. Never did they know that I smoked marijuana, and I didn't have to be stoned to conduct any of the behaviour I described above.

It was in December of last year---the night after having smoked marijuana---that I almost had a heart attack and nearly died. My heart begun racing, erratically, abnormally, with what the doctors called a 'tachycardia'. This kept up for four hours, until my heartbeat slowly began to decrease to a normal rate. I spent the night in hospital. The doctors told me this was because of marijuana. Only marijuana. No previous histories of heart problems at all. Marijuana had ultimately almost killed me.

The feelings I felt---lying on the hospital gurney, hooked up to machines, convinced I was going to die---were the worst I've ever felt in my life. After that, I never touched marijuana again. I spent the next three months self-rehabilitating, and I can tell you that those three months were the worst of my life. Almost every night my heart screwed up, just like it did that night in hospital, sometimes for 30 seconds, other times 30 minutes. Every night I craved the drug and was incredibly sad to the point where I was suicidal. Like I said, I never considered myself an addict.

Funnily enough, I was around smokers, smoking, most days for the next three months. Every time someone offered me drugs, I said no. I wanted to but I knew that I shouldn't. My close friends kept me away from it because they knew how I felt.

Now it's been nine months and I haven't touched it since the night before that horrible night. I'm completely drug-free but I still look back on my past with regret. After three months---coincidentally the same amount of time it apparently takes for marijuana to get out of your system---I was no longer anxious. At all. My minor health issues didn't phase me. My anxiety was gone. I was no longer angry, and no longer sad, and I haven't experienced a panic attack in nine months.

No words can tell you how horrible I felt and how angry I was at myself for letting it go that far. And before that, I was convinced that nothing bad would happen to me---all my other friends were doing it and nothing bad was happening to them, so why shouldn't I? I can confidently say that such a thought is foolish.

Don't ever tell yourself that it won't ever happen to you. Because it can and it does, easily. It's probably already affecting you. You just don't realise it. You don't think it's 'all that bad'---it's a light drug, it's the lowest on the scale---until it does something horrible to you. Until you start to realise all the wrongs and faults it's causing.

Smoking in 'moderation' is rubbish. No one should smoke marijuana because it affects you right from the very beginning. You don't realise it; you're unaware of the damage it's causing because it's affecting your mind. A psychological addiction is tricky, and you don't even know you're addicted until you look back and see how you've kept up smoking, more and more, until you're smoking every day and finding it difficult to go without. As I did.

When the day comes, that marijuana DOES cause you serious strife, you might realise all the things I did. You can't begin to comprehend the serious debilitation, struggles and depression marijuana can cause until you're lying on the hospital gurney, hooked up to machines. Everything changes. Your outlook, everything.

That's what I've always told myself about every drug, from this day forward. That's what I'm always telling my friends, as I slowly and gently lead them away from their vicious and discretely-damaging lifestyles. That's what I say to people my own age when I'm with them, helping them through rehab, watching them fight off cravings, fight off the need, in rehabilitation clinics. I want to help them, so I tell them. The cold hard truth. It's just the way it is, and trying to look at the positives won't ever outweigh the negatives. And I'm still helping them, to this day. And so far, it's working. I'm 16 years old. Nobody my age should have to go through that.