2024-07-15 14:11:57
Anyone who starts using cannabis at an early age changes their life irreversibly. One young man did this for 15 years and now asks himself why?
On April 1st, a new era began for cannabis users in Germany. Thousands of people met in front of the Brandenburg Gate to smoke weed together. Since then, possession and cultivation of cannabis are no longer a criminal offense for adults in Germany.
Jonas wasn’t there. The 34-year-old had recently decided to stop smoking weed. Up until that point, he had consumed cannabis excessively for half his life, but now he finally wanted to get off the drug.
Jonas’s real name is different. He told his drug story on his own YouTube channel. After 15 years of continuous use, he has now spent 30 days without “weed”, as cannabis is also called among users. “That was very unpleasant,” Jonas says in the video about his withdrawal. When asked by t-online, he is not sure why he made it public. In March, he took his camera and filmed himself walking through the forest and talking about his new sobriety: that he had trouble falling asleep and had violent nightmares that made him wake up screaming.
Even worse, however, were the “unbelievable depressions” during withdrawal, which “robbed him of all desire for life.” Jonas uploaded the video to the internet under the pseudonym “sheeriolife.” More than a hundred thousand people have watched it there. Many share their own stories with the drug. Some told him that they also wanted to stop using because of him. “That motivates me to continue with withdrawal.”
Increase in problematic marijuana use in Germany
Germany has seen an increase in cannabis consumption for years. 4.5 million Germans have consumed weed in the past 12 months. This is stated in the “Yearbook of Addiction 2024” of the German Center for Addiction Issues (DHS). 30 percent of consumers consider their own consumption to be problematic, with men being affected almost twice as often as women. The DHS has identified a number of risk factors that can lead to a so-called “cannabis use disorder.” These include “an early starting age, intensive consumption, and co-consumption with tobacco.”
That’s how it started for Jonas, who grew up in a big city in western Germany and describes his youth as a “great time”. When he was 15 and drunk at a party, an acquaintance offered him weed for the first time: “I tried it with a friend and we had a lot of fun,” he remembers. Mixing drugs is dangerous and can lead to crashes with acute physical and psychological consequences. But Jonas experienced “a pleasant high,” as he says. He then smoked cannabis more and more often until he was smoking weed every day at the age of 18.
The cannabis ingredient THC can disrupt crucial developmental processes in the adolescent brain. Possible consequences include learning difficulties, psychosis, depression and anxiety, say experts. Those affected are also more likely than others to drop out of school or university.
“I wasn’t a fan of school and university,” says Jonas today. He finished school and then began studying marketing in a new city. But during his studies he “partied a lot,” worked in retail and spent all his money on weed. He dropped out after ten semesters, even though he only had two courses left to complete his degree.
After that, Jonas started a job in a large management consultancy – and stopped smoking weed. While he was sitting in the open-plan office, his friends went on adventure trips. “I could have had a brilliant career, but then my head exploded.” He quit his job – and started smoking cannabis again.