good news guys! teen cigarette smoking ison the decline! but unfortunately they may just be replacing cigarettes with somethingelse: hi everyone, crystal here for dnews answeringyour questions about adolescent adventures in “recreational neuropharmacologyâ€. we’vecovered both tobacco and marijuana frequently on dnews, but now a new study implies thatteenagers may be choosing one over the other. researchers at pennsylvania state universityrecently published the results of a thirty six year long survey of “trends among u.s.high school seniors in recent marijuana use and associations with other substancesâ€.the study focused on the use of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes by almost 600,000 high schoolseniors between 1976 and 2013.
good news from the study are reports thatteen cigarette use is finally on the decline. study author stephanie lanza says “our analysisshows that public health campaigns are working—fewer teens are smoking cigarettes,†but she followedup by saying “we were surprised to find the very clear message that kids are choosingmarijuana over cigarettes.†a bold statement that is relatively devoid of nuance. it is true. the study shows that since the90’s, marijuana use amongst teens has been on the rise with 22% of the high school seniorspolled in 2013 reporting marijuana use in the last 30 days. but it is also importantto note that 22% is less than the 30% of teens who reported marijuana use when the studybegan in 1976 and that was before it became
legalized in several states. additionally in some reports, the incidenceof marijuana use among high school seniors found in this study is being compared to theapproximately 19% that report use of conventional tobacco cigarettes and it is easy to misinterpretthis comparison as “teens are choosing thc over nicotine†but that is not a conclusionthat can be drawn here. in fact, we know that today’s teens prefer their nicotine fromother sources. studies by the fda and cdc indicate that hookah and electronic cigarettesare now the preferred method of nicotine exposure and adolescent use of both doubled between2011 and 2014. this is a case of technology advancing beyondthe design of a scientific study and it is
this type of evolution that make data fromlong term health studies like the penn state study so difficult to interpret. data arejust data, and it is important that scientists and the media understand the limitations andin some cases social context in which that information exists. so are teens choosingthe less addictive psychoactive compound thc over nicotine? probably not, but i think wecan all agree that reduction in conventional cigarette use is a universal good thing.so which is better for you? vaping or smoking pot? tara answer that exact question in thisvideo