The experience of time in habitual teenage marijuana smokers*

Abstract

The research is qualitative; it studies the experience of time in young people who smoke marijuana in excess, given the high rate of smoking in the teenage years, a delicate stage regarding the planning of the future. Our objective is to see how the relationship between past and future plans is manifested in their biography, through goals and actions, in light of their ability to anticipate themselves. Our guiding principle is the ability to “anticipate oneself”, proposed by Sutter, a phenomenological psychiatrist. The information was obtained from the analysis of autobiographies of young persons through the hermeneutical phenomenological method developed by Lindseth, based on Ricoeur. The results reveal that in the biographies the past temporal dimension is characterized by poor descriptions, the present is where they extend themselves most, describing tastes, how they visualize themselves, but showing a lack of clarity in their interests. In the future we see the absence of reference, giving the impression of no progression from the past, and without awareness of the fact that the future possibilities or lack thereof are heavily dependent on present actions.