The brain also has areas and circuits associated with the ability to assess the risks of a situation

and inhibit potentially harmful behaviors. Brain imaging studies show that individuals with
psychoactive substance dependence have dysfunction in those brain regions that are critical for
decision making, learning, memory, and behavior control.

There is no single factor that determines whether a person develops drug dependence. However,
there are a variety of risk factors that have been scientifically identified that contribute to the
development of addiction. One of the most important is the age of first consumption. For
example, neuroscience has shown that the brain is still developing in children and adolescents, so
drug use during this period can have significant long-term consequences.

There are structures of the human brain that continue to mature until the age of 25, especially
those related to complex mental functions and the ability to control impulses. Drugs modify the
balance of brain neurochemistry and the signals that drive the complex maturation processes of
the aforementioned structures. Consumption during this stage can have long-term repercussions,
since it can also alter the selection process of neural connections that in the future will allow the
full functioning of the brain, and therefore the need to avoid consumption, or at least delay it. the
age of onset.

Cannabis sativa, or marijuana, there is the increasing diffusion of its use for medical purposes and
the growing trend towards the decriminalization of recreational use in various places such as the
United States and some countries in western and central Europe. On the other hand, certain
countries, such as Chile and Uruguay, have decriminalized the possession of marijuana for
personal use with minimum doses that vary from one country to another, and in other places they
have done so de facto, such as in some states of the United States.