According to a recent research it was found that teenagers who were taking cannabis on a regular basis became addicts to other hard drugs later in their life.

Teenagers turn in to heroin addiction later in their life due to the positive emotion that they derive by taking these drugs. Cannabis is considered to be the gateway drug which further leads a person to get exposed to other hard drugs. Adolescents become primed and then later crave the chemical stimulation of hard drugs.

Previously it was thought that the craving for drugs was mainly due to peer or emotional pressures or easy availability of the drug but now it is found that early exposure induces craving and turns teenagers to addicts. The study results were published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. The researchers studied the effects of drugs on rats by exposing them to cannabis. Initially they were given a small amount of these drugs but slowly started to take larger doses of opium when trained to self administer when compared to other rodents. Dr Yasmin Hurd of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, said cannabis acts on the brain's natural chemicals and thereby increases the positive emotions.

Keywords: Dr Yasmin Hurd, teenagers, positive emotion, cannabis, Adolescents, hard drugs, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, opium, addicts, chemical stimulation, craving.