US teens prefer marijuana and vaping over tobacco

According to a study by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), more US teenagers are vaping and smoking marijuana than are using tobacco products.

The study, titled ‘Monitoring the Future’ reported that 23.9% of high-school seniors smoked marijuana during the 30-day period before responding the survey, while 9.7% said they smoked tobacco during the same period. The study also reported that 16.6% had used e-cigarettes, which have the capability of vaping marijuana products.

Among US high-school sophomores, 15.2% said they smoked marijuana, 13.3% admitted to vaping, and 5% said they smoked tobacco products. Of the eighth-grade students surveyed, 5.5% admitted to smoking marijuana, 6.6% said they vaped and 1.9% reporting using tobacco products.

The survey also noted that using marijuana daily had become “as, or more, popular” among teenagers than smoking tobacco products daily. About 5.9% of high-school students reported smoking marijuana daily, while 4.2% reported smoking cigarettes daily.

Richard Miech, the study’s principal investigator, said that many had expected the use of marijuana to increase. He noted that use of marijuana had increased historically, as teenagers began to discount the risks of using it. He said there has been a steady decrease for years in the number of teenagers who thought that smoking marijuana was risky and that the risk perception among teenagers is now at its lowest in decades.

In 1991, 41% of high-school seniors thought there was a ‘great risk’ in using marijuana occasionally, while only 14% expressed that opinion in 2017.