Fewer teens are smoking tobacco, but more are smoking marijuana. In the Dec. 20 edition of the LA Times, Bill Piper ( director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance) addressed the question of whether this signifies a successful anti-tobacco effort or a failure to dissuade teens from smoking pot.
To Piper, the answer is clear: It's a bit of both:
For the first time since 1981, fewer high school seniors report having used cigarettes in the past month than marijuana. This is a victory for U.S. tobacco policy, which has used education, prevention and regulation to massively reduce cigarette smoking; it's also an embarrassment for marijuana prohibition, which has wasted enormous amounts of taxpayer money arresting millions of citizens with very little to show for it except construction of new prisons and shocking racial disparities.
- According to the 2010 Monitoring the Future survey, teen marijuana use has risen for all prevalence periods (lifetime, past year, past 30 days and daily in the past 30 days).
- Daily marijuana use among high school seniors is now at 6.1%, the highest rate since the early 1980s.
- Overall, 21.4% of high school seniors used marijuana at least once last month, an increase of 0.8% over the past year.
Posted By: Aspen Education Group