Pubdate: Wed, 15 Dec 2010
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: A10
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Melissa Healy
Referenced: The NIDA summary http://drugabuse.gov/PDF/overview2009.pdf
Referenced: The Monitoring the Future reports 
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2009.pdf , 
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/occpapers/occ73.pdf , 
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2009.pdf

POT SMOKING MAKES COMEBACK AMONG TEENAGERS

Obama's Drug Czar Blames Prop. 19 and Similar State Measures for Reported Rise.

After nearly a decade in decline, marijuana is making a strong 
comeback among teens, with more high school seniors reporting that 
they had recently smoked pot than cigarettes, according to a 
government survey issued Tuesday.

This year, 21.4% of high school seniors said they had used marijuana 
in the last 30 days, while 19.2% reported smoking cigarettes in the 
same time period, according to the annual "Monitoring the Future" 
survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It was the first 
time since 1981 that pot surpassed tobacco in that age group.

The remarkable crossover is a victory for public health campaigns 
aimed at stamping out cigarette smoking among teens. But the federal 
office that tracks illicit drug use said it was driven by an uptick 
in youth marijuana use that is broad-based and likely to continue, 
with even eighth-graders reporting softer attitudes about the risk of 
smoking pot.

The Obama administration's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, blamed state 
medical marijuana measures like California's Proposition 19 for 
making pot seem less dangerous to younger Americans.

"Calling marijuana 'smoked medicine' is absolutely incorrect," 
Kerlikowske said at a news conference in Washington to present the 
findings. Young people, he said, have taken the "wrong message" from 
the debate.

In the survey, the proportion of 12th-graders who acknowledged daily 
use of marijuana reached 6.1% -- the highest point since the early 
1980s -- and the numbers of eighth- and 10th-graders smoking pot 
daily also climbed, to 1% and 3%, respectively. As these younger 
students advance toward graduation, rates of pot-smoking will 
continue to climb, researchers said.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 
called the rise in daily marijuana use particularly troubling given 
that frequent use has been shown to be more damaging to learning and 
memory than occasional use -- especially in teenagers, whose brains 
are still developing. Daily smokers are also at far higher risk of 
developing dependency on marijuana and other drugs, she said.

Attitudes toward the club drug Ecstasy also softened among eighth- 
and 10th-graders, and use increased. Researchers called the increase 
an example of "generational forgetting," in which a lull in use is 
followed by an uptick among younger people who were not exposed to 
anti-drug messages.

Among high school seniors, 8% said they had abused the prescription 
pain medication Vicodin in the previous year, down from 9.7% in 2009. 
Illicit use of the opioid painkiller OxyContin held steady in that 
group and was up among 10th-graders. Twelfth-graders continued to 
report the nonmedical use of drugs prescribed for attention deficit 
disorder -- about 6.5% acknowledged taking them in the last year, and 
roughly the same number used amphetamines.

Pot, however, outpaced all of those, with roughly 1 in 3 seniors -- 
and 1 in 4 10th-graders -- reporting that they had smoked marijuana 
in the last year.  
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake