U.S. teens smoke more marijuana, but back off other drugs -survey [View all]
Source: Reuters
Dec 18 (Reuters) - U.S. teenagers are smoking more marijuana, but backing away from other harmful drugs and doing less binge drinking, according to a report from federal health researchers released Wednesday.
Easier access to marijuana provided by new state laws allowing the drug for medical treatment may be a factor, according to the report from the National Institutes of Health.
"We should be extremely concerned," said Nora Volkow, director of National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The growing use parallels an increase in the potency of marijuana, so the drug can be even more harmful to developing brains than in the past, she added.
Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/12/18/usa-marijuana-teenagers-survey-idINL2N0JX1CG20131218
I can only post 4 graphs here, but, from the start, the NIDA makes assumptions not in evidence that the greater potency of hybrid strains of cannabis means people smoke more of more dangerous product. The reverse is true because it takes less plant material to obtain the desired result.
I posted in the Drug Policy Forum, yesterday, that this report was forthcoming today and we should watch to see how the NIDA spins this to support continued drug laws. They do this later in the article by noting more teens are smoking as legalization and liberalization of laws make it easier for teens to obtain cannabis.
But here's another reality.
Teens are using the least harmful substance to alter consciousness. Tobacco and alcohol are both far, far more addictive and have far, far worse side effects than cannabis. In places where cannabis has been made legal, traffic fatalities are down, and those looking at this stat conjecture that the move from alcohol to cannabis makes the streets safer for all of us.
Regulation of cannabis, like alcohol, will help to control access. It won't remove it, just as teens have access to alcohol now, but regulation will provide information to consumers about the level of THC, the presence of pesticides, etc.
Ahead of this report, all the major news outlets ran a story that conjectured cannabis altered the brain - but there was no meaning behind this alteration, fwiw - but, again, that was the scare story in advance of this latest study released.
It's interesting to see propaganda in action.
The cannabis legalization issue is rife with propaganda - and misinformation, sometimes on both sides. But the overwhelming amount of misinformation has come from the very sources one would expect to provide helpful information, not misleading rhetoric to support prohibition that the majority of Americans don't support.
The good news is that teens are smoking fewer cigarettes and drinking less alcohol. Good news.
= new reply since forum marked as read
