The students lean back on their elbows, faces tipped towards the sun. The odd smell fills the air as they pass around a smoldering joint, each taking a drag and concentrating as they let the smoke fill their lungs. Laughing and enjoying the view atop this sunlit hillside, they find their worries fading away. Whatever comes next isn’t important anymore.

“One of the main reasons I was so okay with smoking weed was because I had watched my older sibling do it on a regular basis, and he still did well in school and lived normally,” said senior Pete, whose real name has been changed to protect his identity. “I just thought, ‘Well if he can smoke every day without letting it affect his performance in school, I might as well give it a try.’ So I did during my freshman year.”

In his case, marijuana is nothing more than an occasional pastime.

“I’ve made a lot of positive relationships through it,” sophomore Kristin said. “I’ve met some cool people, and I’ve become a lot closer to a guy through it, which is a good thing.”

Marijuana in particular can be attractive because the effects often outweigh the risk of breaking the law.

“Usually there’s a lot of positive reinforcement from getting high or drunk because it feels good in the moment,” psychologist Keith Sutton said. “Often the kid’s doing some experimentation and there isn’t too much of an effect if it’s an occasional thing.”

It’s when the occasional thing turns into a constant need, when friends become worried and uncomfortable, and when parents start to feel pushed away, that something might be wrong.

“Any time we were hanging out, I’d show up high,” senior Eddie said. “Eventually my friends started wondering if I was okay.”

Eddie had started smoking marijuana because it looked fun. Being high helped him feel closer to his friends, something that was important to him because he had always felt like an outsider in his group.

“Honestly I did feel like I had to be high to do anything,” Eddie said. “I definitely felt a lot worse when I was sober for various reasons. I wouldn’t say I was addicted, but there was a dependence.”

His friends confronted him when they became concerned that he was doing it too much. Now Eddie is on a regimen: one week on, one week off.

“I still want to be able to participate and be fun and happy,” Eddie said,” just without having to rely on being high.”

The trouble was that Eddie had started to forge some close relationships with his friends as a result of smoking with them. He now has to figure out how to be close with them when sober.

“Before I started smoking, my life was relatively boring. It comes with problems, but it also comes with benefits and stories,” Eddie said. “Having gone through this experience I’ve learned how to get more involved when I’m sober.”

Sutton said that one of the biggest indicators that a teen is going downhill is when they start using drugs as their primary coping mechanism.

“I’ve worked with a lot of clients who have really struggled and felt addicted to marijuana,” Sutton said. “They felt stressed out when they weren’t smoking and going through withdrawal.”

Of course, there are kids who will not feel the need for drug psychologists or support during withdrawal because they have no intention of ever stopping. Junior Maria saw one of her oldest friends turn into a different person in the span of a year due to excessive drug use.

“We both started in freshman year for fun,” Maria said. “Then sophomore year I turned around and she was smoking every day. It kind of consumed her mind. Whenever I was with her all she would talk about was drugs and being high, and times when crazy things happened when she was high.”

When her friend started smoking cigarettes on top of the weed, Maria and her friends grew worried.

“We could tell that it was going to get worse, so we tried to tell her we were concerned,” Maria said. “She didn’t care at all. She was probably thinking ‘I could stop if I want to, but I don’t want to stop.’”

Maria saw her friend dive into a world of constantly searching for opportunities to get high. Cigarettes were followed by experimentation with molly, Xanax and cocaine.

“She started being secretive and scheming for money and for rides,” Maria said. “Being me, I just said ‘whatever’ and let her do it.”

It became difficult to relate to her anymore, and it affected her relationship with her parents.

“We were still friends, but she was talking about stuff that I had no connection to,” Maria said. “By the end I stopped caring. It made me upset that we were friends for so long and it ended like that.”

These days Maria and her friend are still amicable, but they rarely spend time together.

“Every time now when she hangs out with people she always says, ‘Let’s go get weed; let’s go get drinks,’” Maria said. “I don’t really want to.”

Maria’s story shows how a relationship with drugs can turn dangerous.

“With any controlled substance, no matter what age you are, or even if it’s legal or not, it has to be done in moderation,” Sutton said. “Anything can get out of control.”

Along the same lines, Maria said that she has plenty of friends who are in control when smoking weed, and that it really depends person to person.

“As much as I don’t want it to be true, I can’t deny the fact that marijuana is a gateway drug,” Pete said. “It’s categorized with so many other hard drugs, so once people smoke weed for the first time, they realize it really isn’t as bad as everyone says, so they start experimenting with other drugs that ‘aren’t that bad.’”

Often, it’s a case of the snowballing effect. When only good things happen after smoking marijuana, it is a green light to move on to harder drugs. The difference is in being able to recognize when to slow down.

“I’ve never seriously regretted it,” Kristin said. “Yet.”