Marijuana today is between six and seven times stronger than the marijuana that was available a few decades ago.

A doctor from El Camino health, Jennier Weintraub details the trend of the rise in Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (also known as THC), the main active ingredient of cannabis.

“In 1995, the concentration of THC in cannabis was about 4%. By 2017, it had risen to 17%. Today, it is common to see strains containing 30% THC.”

Historically classified as a Schedule I substance, cannabis is defined by its high risk of addiction and lack of acceptable medical use. Signed on Dec. 18, 2025, Trump’s executive order aims to move marijuana from the same category as highly addictive substances like heroin and LSD to painkillers like Tylenol and anabolic steroids. Though it is yet to be finalized, recent decriminalization over the past few decades resulted in widespread societal normalization.

The strength of THC is increasing and so is the proportion of people who are using it. According to PBS, from 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting near-daily cannabis use increased 15-fold.

These drastic increases have led to greater concern about the risk of negative physical impacts. According to Harvard Medical School, cannabis use on a developing brain frequently leads to far worse performance on cognitive or behavioral tasks. Weintraub emphasizes the adverse physical changes prolonged consumption.

These physical impacts paired with the increase in concentration has led to a greater concern for addiction among parents and regular users. According to DrugAbuse, cannabis use does not create a physical addiction, but people can experience physical withdrawal symptoms, which Alex, an anonymous Palo Alto parent, has noted.

“There’s a risk of addiction with everything,” Alex said. “Even if it is not physically addictive, it can be habitually addictive.”

This established knowledge of the negative impacts of cannabis, from cognition to hormonal changes, has pushed Palo Alto Unified School District schools to work to prevent and educate about the early use of cannabis. This push for students to refrain from using cannabis begins when students are around 11 years of age, junior Joyce Ma said.

“Ever since middle school, there have been posters that say ‘Don’t do drugs,’” Ma said. “Everyone knows you’re not supposed to do drugs, and people still do them anyway.”

For junior Maya Cheng, lessons on drugs and prevention in middle school failed to educate her on specific substances such as cannabis. Based on a survey, on a scale of one to five — where one is least knowledgeable and five is most — she rated herself at a one.

“My teacher talked pretty heavily about STI [Sexually Transmitted Infections] and STD [Sexually Transmitted Diseases] prevention back in middle school,” Cheng said. “As for drugs, all we learned about is the science behind addiction. Beyond that, I haven’t heard much [about weed].”

Accurate knowledge about cannabis is important for safety, just as figuring out which age group to introduce and educate about marijuana is crucial.

“Whether or not it’s developmentally appropriate [to use/consume/learn about] depends on the context of the kids,” Cheng said. “If weed is a problem at a school, even at the middle school level, students have to be aware [of risks] because they’re [at] a higher risk for being in that environment.”

But, exposure too early or too late can render the lesson useless.

“When you’re at the high school level, you have more independence and are going to meet more people in general, even outside of your school environment,” Cheng said. “It’s important to be educated about risk factors [in high school] regardless of whether or not it’s a major issue at your school.”

Kevin Boehnke, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, highlights the importance of clear and compassionate communication around cannabis.

“It’s notable that many students report using cannabis to help with mental health and sleep,” Boehnke said. “If we can talk about cannabis in an open and honest way, it allows for better decision-making [towards using this substance].”

One such student is Charlie, an anonymous senior.

“I first smoked weed when I was 12 years old,” Charlie said. “My parents smoke weed a lot, and my grandma takes edibles to fall asleep, … so I think that’s why I was open to trying weed for the first time.”

Charlie does not use weed often, but when they do, they said it is primarily for the perceived benefit of relaxation.

“I’m diagnosed with anxiety, so [weed] helps with that,” Charlie said. “It’s pretty beneficial [to use weed] when you’re stressed out, want to relax or have trouble falling asleep.”

Although Charlie’s case is self-administered, their perspective offers one example of how cannabis is used in medical contexts in day-to-day lives. Such customs aren’t uncommon in a high school setting, which is why the PAUSD district implemented a course to provide a fundamental understanding of real-world problems. As a mandatory course, living skills tackles issues such as mental health, sexual education and drug abuse. Hunter Reardon, one of two living skills teachers, explains more about the drugs and addiction unit of the course.

“In my period of living skills, we do a deep dive into the neuroscience of addiction,” Reardon said. “We then turn our focus to specific drugs and drug classes using the periodic table of the intoxicants, which is similar to the periodic table of the elements, but it’s all about the different drugs and what classes they belong to.”

When planning what cannabis education should entail, Boehnke said the key goes beyond just warning students against the consequences.

“Common sense strategies that go beyond abstinence are necessary,” Boehnke said. “For those who will use cannabis regardless of how many times they’re told not to, … information on how to use it safely, thoughtfully and with intention is incredibly helpful.”

Achieving this education lies in providing the tools for students to not only understand what cannabis is but know how to approach it in all kinds of situations. In Reardon’s eyes, there is also an issue with having the school and teachers be the sole warning for students.

“They’ve had prior instruction on cannabis, especially middle school, so I don’t necessarily feel like spending a whole 90-minute period talking about the dangers of cannabis is really going to be that effective,” Reardon said. “Having [the lesson] be student-centered and project-based, with students teaching each other, is going to be more effective for helping them understand.”

After every major section of his curriculum, Reardon said he elaborates more on his personal encounters with users. From story to story, he hopes to educate and create a sympathetic learning environment, which can be seen from his anecdote of an old acquaintance who started using marijuana at a young age.

“They used it every day starting at age 16, which I believe was a big factor in their life completely falling apart,” Reardon said. “Grades slipped, [they] weren’t able to go to college, [they] eventually got a GED at age 21 and now work minimum wage gas station jobs. Their life was completely derailed.”

At the end of the day, the consequences of cannabis can lead to unforeseen circumstances.

“If you can’t think executively, if you lose that ability, then that makes it very difficult to be academically successful or do many of the things that the 21st century education and workplace require,” Reardon said.

But, even with Paly’s current cannabis education process, many students who haven’t taken living skills are not sufficiently knowledgeable in terms of drug safety. Fitting into this category, the only thing freshman Leon Atkins knows about marijuana is that it makes you “high.”

“I didn’t realize what cannabis was until a few years ago,” Atkins said. “My parents haven’t educated me, but I know what it smells like because my parents would point it out when it [the smell] came in the car.”

But cannabis is not just a bad smell or a harmful substance — it is also used medically. California legalized medical cannabis in 1996 through the Compassionate Use Act, permitting three decades of therapeutic access since. In most cases, a small dose — an arbitrary amount which varies by medical facility — of THC is used for pain-relieving treatments of chronic pain, epilepsy and the nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatment.

Proposition 64, enacted in California in 2016, decriminalized recreational cannabis use for adults aged 21 and older. In the decade since, communities have adapted to a broader public presence of cannabis, which in turn has raised questions about how attitudes toward and experiences with cannabis are changing within a high school community. Taylor, an anonymous senior, notes this phenomenon.

“Freshman year, ‘weed’ was barely even in my vocabulary,” Taylor said. “As junior year came around, though, I realized a lot more people were using weed than I expected. Personally, it [using] started with trying weed once, then I ended up doing it a couple more times. Now, going into senior year, I would say it’s more popularized and common.”

In many people’s perceptions, marijuana shifted from a rumor to a real presence in the lives of some high schoolers.
“Some people I know rely on [marijuana] to sleep, deal with stress or cope when they’re feeling down,” Taylor said. “Admitting that you depend on it can be really difficult, especially with adults, because there’s a fear of being judged or looked at differently.”

This fear contributes to why students find conversations about cannabis awkward or uncomfortable, Taylor said. However, Alex notices how the scale of the stigma against marijuana use has significantly decreased compared to older generations.

“It was more taboo,” Alex said. “Parents certainly did not do it around their kids like they do now. In addition, kids did not widely share if they used pot, and there was a stigma associated with ‘stoners.’”

Even though decriminalization led to broader acceptance, many physical, mental and habitual impacts continue to create stigma around cannabis discussions between student and teacher. To combat this, Reardon mentions implementing an earlier in-depth cannabis education at Paly as a precaution.

“Starting last year, we had one freshman advisory lesson on tobacco and one freshman advisor lesson on cannabis,” Reardon said. “Those have been at least moderately successful and we’re gonna continue to do that indefinitely.”

As a community, cannabis education is something that both teachers and students are looking forward to improving.

“Weed can take away from living fully in the moment, and it can make it harder to create strong memories,” Taylor said. “You don’t need weed to be happy or to feel something different than what you’re already feeling.”

These social concerns are amplified as possible national legalization would move it from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. According to PBS, this reclassification might increase access to cannabis research, allowing for more in depth understanding of the drug. However, since funding cuts have been made to many research organizations, such as the National Institutes of Health, it is yet to be seen how helpful this reclassification becomes. The legality and future of cannabis use remains to be seen but Weintraub emphasizes and advises students that “legal” doesn’t mean “safe.”

“Anything that harms your brain and your body puts you in danger,” Weintraub said. “It may be legal, it may be reclassified as ‘safer’ and it may be widely available to you in multiple forms. Make the choice that keeps you in the driver’s seat for your life.”

To find out more, check out the links below:

https://med.stanford.edu/cannabispreventiontoolkit.html

https://cannawisemed.org

https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/DO/letstalkcannabis/Pages/LetsTalkCannabis.aspx