Teen marijuana vaping is on the rise, a new report says, threatening to ‘undo years of progress’ – By Jayne O’Donnell (USA Today) / Dec 18 2019
One in five high school seniors has vaped marijuana in the last year, according to a new National Institute on Drug Abuse report.
As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,409 cases of lung injury from vaping and 52 deaths.
Past-year alcohol use among high school students is down about 14% since 2014, the NIDA report said.
Federal data out Wednesday showed a “significant” increase in the number of 8th through 12th grade students vaping marijuana, and a similarly high jump in daily cannabis use by 8th and 10th graders, while alcohol and opioid use continues to plummet.
One in five high school seniors vaped marijuana in the last year and 14% vaped it in the last month, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported. Both numbers doubled in the past two years, and the jump in past-month use was the second biggest since the study started in 1975.
Meanwhile, past-year alcohol use saw a significant five-year drop among 10th and 12th graders in 2019 to 37.7% and 52.1%. And past-month misuse of the opioid pain reliever Oxycontin was down from 4% of 12th graders in 2002 to 1.7% this year.
Dr. Nora Volkow, the psychiatrist who has been NIDA’s director since 2003, called the vaped marijuana trends “very worrisome.” She pointed to this year’s still-increasing national outbreak of lung illnesses and death, overwhelmingly from vaped THC, and the growing evidence of a link between marijuana, psychosis and other serious mental health disorders, including schizophrenia. THC is the substance in the drug that produces a “high.”
“Teens are clearly attracted to vaping products, which are often concentrated amounts of drugs disguised as electronic gadgets,” said Volkow. “Their growing popularity threatens to undo years of progress protecting the health of adolescents in the U.S.”
As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,409 cases of lung injury from vaping and 52 deaths. State and federal officials have struggled to pinpoint the causes of the vaping illnesses beyond vitamin E acetate, an additive identified in most of the cases studied.
Continue to article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/12/18/teen-marijuana-vaping-drinking-lung-illness-psychosis/2671120001/
