Nationwide Survey Shows Fewer Teens Think Marijuana Is Harmful

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) published the results in the 2013 Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, which asks over 40,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders regarding medication, alcohol, and cigarette use. The research demonstrated both fantastic news and places for concern.

To begin with, scientists are worried that only about 40 percent of 12th graders-that's 4 out of every 10 teens-believe using marijuana frequently can harm you. That is 60% that believe marijuana isn't harmful! This understanding that marijuana use is"okay" is tied into the growth in adolescents' use of this medication over the previous several decades.

Science demonstrates that regular marijuana use may be more damaging to your health and your potential. THC, the key psychoactive component in marijuana, may harm the developing adolescent mind, yet teens are not understanding the link between marijuana use and the brain's capacity to learn.

Marijuana use can also be putting teens at risk for auto accidents -because the medication impairs motor coordination and response time. With medical marijuana getting more accepted and a few countries making marijuana legal to use, it is hard to find these messages to adolescents.

There is other news which worries scientists also: Teens are still misuse Adderall in a high pace. That medication is generally prescribed for individuals using ADHD-and when used as prescribed, as it may truly help. However, greater than 7 percent of high school seniors say that they use Adderall for high or for additional nonmedical factors.

However, the survey informs us that teenagers are becoming smarter about a great deal of medication usage. Pot smoking and alcohol usage continued to decrease in 2013. Additionally, fewer adolescents used K2/Spice (occasionally called artificial bud ), inhalants, cocaine, and heroin. Fewer teenagers are abusing prescription painkillers such as Vicodin, and not many teenagers are using bath salts.

1 final note: While cigarette smoking is down, a lot of teenagers are still"smoking" by simply utilizing a hookah (water heater )-in actuality, over 1 in 5 seniors say they've used a hookah at the last year. Tobacco is not any less detrimental at a hookah.

How can you tell other teenagers that bud is, in reality, detrimental to their health?How can you change their minds if they believe marijuana is harmless?How do} you explain to teens who smoking a hookah is equally as bad for their health as smoking a cigarette?
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