One of the most inflammatory arguments against adult-use cannabis legalization has always been: \u201cThink of the children!\u201d But as it turns out, legalization doesn\u2019t seem to be encouraging teens to consume cannabis in new and horrifying ways \u2014 despite media concern-trolling that would lead readers to think otherwise.<\/p>\n
Of course, nobody \u2014 not legislators, not legalization advocates, businesspeople and\u00a0certainly<\/em>\u00a0not Cannabis Now! \u2014 in the legal cannabis sphere is encouraging recreational\u00a0cannabis use in teenagers<\/a>. And per the available data, teenagers don\u2019t seem to be skirting the rule of law in order to get high: surveys have indicated that teen cannabis use actually\u00a0drops<\/a>\u00a0in states with medical marijuana programs.<\/p>\n And on top of that, a\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0indicates that teens who do use cannabis tend to smoke, which means that fears of the sugary content of edibles or the trendiness of vaping appealing to America\u2019s youth are factually inaccurate.<\/p>\n Prohibitionists can (and\u00a0often do<\/a>!) list myriad reasons they oppose legalization, but one of the most universally compelling is the idea that legalizing weed would encourage teen substance use.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not as if such concerns are entirely unwarranted. There is\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0linking cannabis use in adolescence with likelihood of depression later in life, as well as changes in\u00a0grey matter content<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 though\u00a0more research<\/a>\u00a0is necessary to draw definitive conclusions about causation on either front.<\/p>\n \u201cI worry that legalizing the drug for adults sends a clear message to children that they can get high on pot with no negative impact on their health,\u201d wrote one woman in a\u00a0Fox News op-ed<\/a>\u00a0titled \u201cPot and teens \u2013 I\u2019m a mom and a doctor, here\u2019s what I tell my own teenagers.\u201d In this article, the writer lists a series of worries, including health issues linked to marijuana \u2014 depression, substance use disorders and puzzlingly \u201cman boobs\u201d \u2014 as causes for alarm. But she cites another big concern about legalization and teens: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t help that marijuana can be consumed in different ways. It can be smoked, mixed into foods and even brewed as tea. This may be enticing to the younger population.\u201d<\/p>\n Another\u00a0article<\/a> from the Chicago Sun-Times warns readers against the latest teen trend: vaping THC-rich concentrates. The opener is cleverly worded to send shockwaves across every Midwestern mom\u2019s newsfeed: \u201cFor today\u2019s youth, \u2018dabbing\u2019 has two common meanings: one being a popular dance move and another being a term for vaping marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n Per a survey of actual teenagers, however, vaping is not the looming menace it\u2019s cracked up to be. From a sample of 2,630 lifetime cannabis users aged 14 to 18, 99 percent of them reported consuming cannabis the old-fashioned way: smoking it. By contrast, only 44 percent of the respondent pool reported having vaped. And 61 percent of the lifetime consumers (read: teens who\u2019d tried it at least once) reported eating an edible \u2014 more than half, sure, but nowhere near pandemic levels.<\/p>\n The study, published in the\u00a0Journal of Adolescent Health<\/a>, recruited its teen subjects via Facebook and Instagram ads, and surveyed them about their \u201cuse history, current use patterns, and reasons and preferences for each administration method with a particular focus on the route of vaping,\u201d which makes their conclusion all the more surprising.<\/p>\n Additionally, only 22 percent of the teen respondents reported using cannabis in the past 30 days, with the largest portion, 41 percent, having last consumed more than 365 days prior to taking the survey. And though 62 percent teenagers who smoke marijuana reported that they\u2019d done so on more than 100 days in their lifetime, 63 percent of teen vapers said they\u2019d done so on 10 or fewer occasions, and 80 percent of teens who\u2019d eaten edibles had the same 10-day metric.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the growing availability of new\u00a0cannabis\u00a0administration methods, the majority of adolescents in this social media-recruited sample with a\u00a0lifetime\u00a0history of vaporization\/edible use still preferred to smoke cannabis,\u201d researchers said in the study\u2019s conclusion, noting how this result contrasted with their expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch findings were somewhat surprising as we expected that more youth might initiate cannabis use via vaping or edibles because of the increased availability of these methods,\u201d the conclusion continues. \u201cMoreover, we anticipated that once youth tried vaping or edibles, they would be more likely to choose to use these routes\u2026 yet to date such preferences for vaping have not yet resulted in major shifts away from smoking.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the day, adolescents should probably stay away from cannabis until we know\u00a0exactly<\/em>\u00a0what it does to their seething, developing brains \u2014 but since we all know that\u2019s never going to happen, at least we can draw comfort from the fact that the data says legalization isn\u2019t actively encouraging their teenage rebellion.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, did you consume cannabis as a teen?<\/p>\n The post Study Indicates Legalization Isn\u2019t Encouraging Teens to Vape More Cannabis<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
One of the most inflammatory arguments against adult-use cannabis legalization has always been: \u201cThink of the children!\u201d But as it turns out, legalization doesn\u2019t seem to be encouraging teens to consume cannabis in new and horrifying ways \u2014 despite media concern-trolling that would lead readers to think otherwise. Of course,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,9620,687,53,724,1854],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34336,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34335\/revisions\/34336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blowing Smoke<\/h4>\n
The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Study Indicates Legalization Isn\u2019t Encouraging Teens to Vape More Cannabis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"