High school students have made waves among cannabis researchers, as recent survey data gathered from U.S. authorities show that American high school students are more likely to smoke cannabis than cigarettes.
The data marks an historical cultural shift among U.S. high schoolers. For the first time since authorities began monitoring substance use in high schools, cannabis is more likely to be tried than cigarettes. Exactly, 6% of students were likely to smoke marijuana, versus 5.5% tobacco.
Sure, that’s not a huge margin, but it reflects a steady increase in cannabis preference among high school students. The subtle but important eclipsing of tobacco reflects the larger trend toward cannabis normalization throughout the United States.
It may also indicate that knowledge of cannabis relatively minor health risks compared to tobacco is making its way into young people’s minds.
Widespread campaigns against teen smoking have had remarkable success in dropping the number of adolescent smokers across the country. This, coupled with the fact that law enforcement seems generally to be reducing it’s prohibitive stance toward cannabis, seems to point to why high school students might be turning to marijuana over tobacco.
According to The Free Thought Project, the trend also means that young people aren’t buying into the hysteria and fear-mongering surrounding legalization and decriminalization of cannabis.
According to a report in Time Magazine, almost 32% of seniors said they thought regular marijuana use could be harmful, compared to 36% who felt that way last year.
“The sense that marijuana has medicinal purposes and that doctors are prescribing it creates a sense that this drug cannot be so harmful,” says Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (the group that funded the research).
In spite of the tyrannical, immoral, and deadly laws against marijuana, and the almost century-long propaganda campaign spewing lies to kids about the plant’s effects, teenagers are finally getting it.
According to “Monitoring the Future,” a federal survey released on Wednesday, more students in the 12th grade said they smoked pot every day, compared to those who smoke daily cigarettes.
Obviously, no one is advocating that high school children use marijuana. However, this transformation in preference is indicative of a positive shift in the drug war paradigm.
(Photo Credit: medicaldaily.com)
