Sativa Steve (L) handles a transaction while Rachel gives a smell to a customer in a medicinal cannabis shop in San Francisco on June 7, 2005. People with a doctor's recommendation and a card from the California Department of Public Health can purchase from the store.The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the medical marijuana movement 6/6, ruling that the federal government can still ban possession of the drug in states. (UPI Photo/Terry Schmitt) |
License Photo
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The debate over medical marijuana and its legalization for adults may have caused an increase in the U.S. teen use of marijuana and other drugs, officials say.
The 2010 Monitoring the Future Survey -- an annual survey of more than 46,000 students from 396 U.S. public and private schools, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan -- measures drug, alcohol and cigarette use and related attitudes in 12th-graders, 10th-graders and eighth-graders.
Use rates for marijuana were 6.1 percent for high-school seniors in 2010, 3.3 percent for 10th-graders and 1.2 percent for eighth-graders compared to 2009 rates of 5.2 percent, 2.8 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.
"We should examine the extent to which the debate over medical marijuana and marijuana legalization for adults is affecting teens' perceptions of risk," Nora D. Volkow, director National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a news conference in Washington.
Vicodin abuse decreased in 12th graders in 2010 to 8 percent, down from around 9.7 percent the past four years, but other indicators confirm that non-medical use of prescription drugs remains high, while the use of OxyContin, stayed about the same for 12th-graders at 5.1 percent in 2010.
In 2010, among high school seniors, 23.2 percent report having five or more drinks in a row during the past two weeks, down from 25.2 percent in 2009.
Legacy, the national public health foundation devoted to keeping young people from smoking, said the survey "found that the percentage of 8th graders who had smoked over past months had increased from 6.5 percent in 2009 to 7.1 percent in 2010, and for those in 10th grade, it increased from 13.1 percent to 13.6 percent. The perceived risk of smoking and the negative attitudes towards smokers seem to be reversing itself."
