U.S. Youth Ditch Alcohol for Cannabis in Record Numbers, Study Says
High Times
American youth are smoking pot more than ever before, but according to the same data, they are dropping booze habits at the same time—begging the question if society is better off as a whole. The findings were published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Toxicology, pinpointing precisely 338,727 instances of intentional abuse or misuse amongst American children aged 6-18. Americans did a fairly good job of keeping drugs away from young children, however, as most of the cases involving smaller children 6-12 were accidental and usually involving over-the-counter items such as vitamins and hormones. Among American youth, cannabis use rose 245% since 2000 in the U.S., while alcohol abuse has steadily declined over the same period. “Young people are ditching alcohol for marijuana,” Neuroscience News reports. “Ethanol abuse cases exceeded the number of marijuana cases every year from 2000 until 2013,” stated Dr Adrienne Hughes, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, one of the authors of the study. “Since 2014, marijuana exposure cases have exceeded ethanol cases every year, and by a greater amount each year than the prior.” “These edible and vaping products are often marketed in ways that are attractive to young people, and they are considered more discrete and convenient,” says Hughes. Researchers pointed out what most of us already know: that problems associated with cannabis usually involve edibles that take hours to creep up. “Compared to smoking cannabis, which typically results in an immediate high, intoxication from edible forms of marijuana usually takes several hours, which may lead some individuals to consume greater amounts and experience unexpected and unpredictable highs,” says Hughes. Researchers noted 57,488 incidents involving children aged just 6 to twelve, but they were cases involving vitamins, plants, melatonin, hand sanitizers, and other typical household objects. A slight majority…
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