Teen Pot Smoking on the Rise


More American high school seniors are smoking marijuana daily
now than at any time since the early 1980s, and they're actually
smoking more pot than cigarettes, according to a survey released
Tuesday.

About 6 percent of high school seniors reported smoking
marijuana daily in the new survey, which involved more than 46,000
teens in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades. That's up from 2 percent
in 1991 and the same percentage that smoked daily in 1981.

The survey results show an end to nearly a decade of declining
rates of pot use. They came as a sharp disappointment to anti-drug
advocates and addiction researchers, who blamed the shift primarily
on the growing national discussions on medicinal marijuana and
legalizing pot -- conversations that have received heavy emphasis
in California.

With so much talk about the potential health benefits of pot,
teenagers are increasingly complacent about the risks of marijuana,
public health experts say.

"When you talk about the potential health benefits of
marijuana, it's the equivalent of saying heroin is a great pain
medication, so you shouldn't be wary of it," said Dr. Nora Volkow,
director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the
study. "A drug may have compounds that have therapeutic benefits,
but that in no way decreases its toxic effects."

The "Monitoring the Future" survey, done by researchers at the
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has reported on drug use among
teenagers every year since 1975. The survey looks at alcohol
consumption, cigarette smoking and use of illicit drugs such as
marijuana, prescription medications, cocaine and ecstasy.

Eight percent of eighth-graders and 21.4 percent of high school
seniors reported having smoked marijuana at least once in the
previous 30 days, when the survey was taken earlier this year. That
is a small but statistically significant increase for both age
groups over the previous year, when 6.5 percent of eighth-graders
and 20.6 percent of seniors smoked pot in the previous month.

About 19 percent of high school seniors reported having smoked a
cigarette in the same 30-day period.

Nearly 44 percent of high school seniors and 17 percent of
eighth-grade students reported having used marijuana at least once
in their life, also small increases over the previous year.

Teenagers in the survey were less worried about the possible
health risks of smoking marijuana. Among high school seniors, 47
percent said they think of marijuana as harmful, compared to 52
percent in 2009.

That's a dangerous perception, said addiction specialists, who
noted that in California, more teenagers are admitted to in-patient
addiction programs for marijuana use than for any other drug,
including alcohol.

"We had a vote this year about decriminalizing marijuana
further -- is it a big surprise that perceived risk is down and
daily use is up?" said Dr. John Mendelson, a senior scientist with
the Addiction and Pharmacology Research Laboratory at California
Pacific Medical Center. "This is the dark side of the medical
marijuana movement. The main risk for kids is addiction. And it's a
substantial risk."

Aside from the possibility of becoming addicted to marijuana,
public health experts said that even occasional pot smoking can
affect memory and, in turn, classroom performance. Many teenagers
who wouldn't ever drive drunk might not recognize the risk
associated with driving while under the influence of marijuana,
Volkow said.

But with such a strong public debate taking place on the medical
use of marijuana, and a recent push to legalize it, teenagers are
getting mixed messages, she said.

The survey results aren't available for specific states or
cities in the United States, but San Francisco public health
experts said that, at least anecdotally, the city has long had
higher-than-average rates of marijuana use among teenagers.

"Generally, San Francisco has been a high marijuana-using city
for at least 40 years," said Jim Stillwell, deputy director of
community behavioral health for the city's public health
department. "But San Francisco school kids don't do as much as the
national average in most other drug categories."

There was a mix of good news and bad news in the survey when it
came to teenage use of other types of drugs. Non-medical use of
prescription drugs remains popular, and there was a small increase
in ecstasy use among all age groups, after several years of
decline.

Cocaine use did not change from 2009 to this year, but it's been
falling steadily since the early 1990s. Alcohol use was down for
all teens. About 41 percent of high school seniors reported having
consumed alcohol at least once in the past 30 days, and 27 percent
said they got drunk.


c.2010 San Francisco Chronicle

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