Source: Frysh, Paul. “Effects of Marijuana Use: How Weed Affects Your Mind & Body.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Dec. 2021, https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/marijuana-use-and-its-effects.

The article, “How Pot Affects Your Mind and Body ” discusses the effects marijuana has on the body. It shows all the side effects that people could have from being paranoid to being hungry more often. The article tells us, “Marijuana can make it harder for you to focus, learn, and remember things. This seems to be a short-term effect lasting 24 hours or longer after you stop smoking. But using pot heavily, especially in your teen years, may leave more permanent effects. Imaging tests with some — but not all — adolescents found that marijuana may physically change their brains. Specifically, they had fewer connections in parts of the brain linked to alertness, learning, and memory, and tests show lower IQ scores in some people.” This means that this drug makes focusing and learning things harder and that is more common with adolescents and teenagers which reflects on test scores, school work, etc. Different studies show that marijuana causes increased appetite for some people. This side effect can be helpful for people who suffer illnesses that cause people not to gain weight. According to the article it also states, “Marijuana can cloud your senses and judgment. The effects can differ depending on things like how potent your pot was, how you took it, and how much marijuana you’ve used in the past. It might: Heighten your senses (colors might seem brighter and sounds might seem louder), Distort your sense of time, Hurt your motor skills and make driving more dangerous, Lower your inhibitions so you may have risky sex or take other chances”  This is one of the most common sides from marijuana. It feels like you can see everything more clearly and time has slowed down but not at all. It is just the chemical in the marijuana, THC, tampering with your brain functions, making you have that euphoric feeling.

“How Pot Affects Your Mind and Body ” was created and published by Paul Frysh. Paul Frysh is a senior health writer who writes for WebMD. Frysh is from South Africa originally and has been writing for almost 20 years. Frysh has written many pieces for newspapers, videos, magazines, etc on topics containing Science, education, medicine, etc. He has been writing for WebMD since 2016 about health and medical-related issues. He has also won two Peabody awards for his team at CNN Digital and his coverage of the news about the 2008 presidential election and Hurricane Katrina. This article was published and then reviewed by Dr. Jennifer Casarella on December 19, 2021. The primary audience is adolescents, teens, and adult who smoke marijuana or is thinking about it. The secondary audience is people who don’t smoke to see what marijuana does to a person without actually doing it. The purpose of this article was to inform the readers of the different side effects marijuana has on someone. The genre of this article is nonfiction because it expresses facts about this drug that can be verified in real life. This is the best genre to address the audience because it is facts that can be backed up by other sources without bias and/or opinions. The author’s tone is very informative in the way it was written. Frysh wrote this without putting any of his feeling and opinions in the article. This answers my question because it clearly shows and states what marijuana does to the body without biased opinions. This can be verified through other sites like the CDC(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and books. Frysh also had his own cited sources listed at the end of his article.