Record numbers of young people in the US are giving up alcohol for cannabis, study says
American youth are smoking more than ever before, but according to the same data, they are also breaking their drinking habits at the same time – raising questions about whether society as a whole is better off.
The findings, published Monday in the journal Clinical Toxicology, accurately show 338,727 cases of intentional abuse or abuse among American children ages 6 to 18. However, Americans have done a pretty good job of keeping drugs away from young children, as most cases involving smaller children aged 6 to 12 have been accidental and usually involved over-the-counter products such as vitamins and hormones.
Among American youth, cannabis use in the US has increased by 245% since 2000, while alcohol abuse has steadily declined over the same period. “Young people are forgoing alcohol for marijuana,” reports Neuroscience News.
“Each year from 2000 to 2013, cases of ethanol abuse exceeded cases of marijuana,” said Dr. Adrienne Hughes, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, one of the study’s authors. “Since 2014, marijuana exposure cases have exceeded ethanol cases every year, and every year by more than the previous year.”
“These edible and vaporizable products are often marketed in a way that is appealing to young people, and they are seen as more discreet and convenient,” says Hughes.
The researchers pointed out what most of us already know: that cannabis-related issues usually affect edibles that take hours to creep in.
“Compared to smoking cannabis, which typically results in an instant high, intoxication from edible forms of marijuana typically lasts for several hours, which can lead some individuals to consume larger amounts and experience unexpected and unpredictable highs,” says Hughes.
The researchers identified 57,488 incidents involving children as young as 6 to 12 years old, but these were cases involving vitamins, plants, melatonin, hand sanitizer and other typical household items.
A slim majority of cannabis use was found in males versus females at 58.3%, and more than 80% of all reported cannabis exposure cases occurred in teenagers aged 13-18 years.
The report illustrates how drugs go in and out of favor over time. Dextromethorphan — the substance most widely reported during the study period — peaked in 2006 but has fallen out of favor with American youth.
Alcohol abuse among adolescents peaked more than 20 years ago in 2000, when most cases of abuse involved exposure to ethanol. Since then, child alcohol abuse has steadily decreased over the years.
Cannabis cases, on the other hand, remained relatively stable from 2000 to 2009, with an increase in cases beginning in 2011 and a more acute increase in cases from 2017 to 2020.
The same pattern emerges when fewer American youth drink alcohol. Changes in the types of cannabis products consumed are also evident. But the increase in unpleasant eating experiences worries the research team.
“Our study describes an upward trend in marijuana abuse among youth, particularly those involving edibles,” says Hughes.
“These results underscore the ongoing concern about the impact of rapidly evolving legalization of cannabis on this vulnerable demographic.”
The results are inconclusive: Previous federally funded data rejects the theory that legalization measures are correlated with increased cannabis use among teens.
A study published in November in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that cannabis legalization was “not significantly associated” with “the likelihood or frequency of self-reported cannabis use in the past year” by teens. It also found that “adolescents who spent much of their youth under legalization were no more or less likely to have used cannabis by age 15 than youth who spent little or no time under legalization”.
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