Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.
After nearly a decade in decline, marijuana is making a strong comeback among U.S. high school seniors, according to a newly released survey.
This year, 21.4 percent of high school seniors said they had used marijuana in the last 30 days, while 19.2 percent reported smoking cigarettes in the same time period, according to the survey published by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
It was the first time since 1981 that pot surpassed tobacco in that age group, said the annual "Monitoring the Future" survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
The proportion of 12th-graders who acknowledged daily use of marijuana reached 6.1 percent -- the highest point since the early 1980s -- and the numbers of eighth- and 10th-graders smoking pot daily also climbed, to one percent and three percent respectively, according to the survey.
Marijuana use outpaced all of painkillers like OxyContin and amphetamines, with roughly one percent in three seniors and one percent in four 10th-graders reporting that they had smoked marijuana last year, the survey said.
As these younger students advance toward graduation, rates of pot-smoking will continue to climb, researchers said.
The Obama administration's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, blamed state medical marijuana measures like California's Proposition 19 for making pot seem less dangerous to younger Americans.
"Calling marijuana 'smoked medicine' is absolutely incorrect," Kerlikowske said in remarks published by the paper. Young people, he said, have taken the "wrong message" from the debate.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIDA, called the rise in daily marijuana use particularly troubling given that frequent use has been shown to be more damaging to learning and memory than occasional use, especially in teenagers whose brains are still developing.
Daily smokers are also at far higher risk of developing dependency on marijuana and other drugs, she was quoted as saying.
XINHUA
0 Comments