Pubdate: Thu, 19 Dec 2013
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388

TEENS ARE USING LESS SYNTHETIC POT, SURVEY SAYS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Fewer teens are trying fake marijuana known by such 
names as K2 and Spice, apparently getting the message that these 
cheap new drugs are highly dangerous, according to the government's 
annual survey on drug use.

Synthetic marijuana is thought to have appeared in the U.S. in 2009, 
and soon after came a spike in emergency room visits, even deaths, as 
the drug caught on among young people.

About 8 percent of high school seniors said they've used some type of 
synthetic marijuana this year, according to the report released 
Wednesday by the National Institutes of Health. That's a sharp drop 
from the 11 percent of seniors who'd experimented with fake pot in 2012.

Use of synthetic drugs among younger teens dropped as well - and 
fewer than 1 percent of students also are trying another new kind of 
illegal drug known as bath salts, said University of Michigan 
professor Lloyd Johnston, who heads the annual Monitoring the Future 
survey of more than 40,000 students in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades.

"The message has gotten out that these are dangerous drugs," Johnston 
said. "Their ever-changing ingredients can be unusually powerful. 
Users really don't know what they are getting."

Synthetic marijuana is made of dried plant material sprayed with 
various chemicals and packaged to look like pot. The Drug Enforcement 
Administration banned a number of chemicals used to make synthetic 
marijuana in 2011, but new chemical varieties continue to appear. 
Earlier this year, federal health officials discovered that two new 
types of fake pot had sickened more than 200 people in a month in Colorado.

The annual survey also found that teenage perceptions of the dangers 
of marijuana use continued to decline. In 1993, more than 60 percent 
of high school seniors considered marijuana dangerous, while this 
year less than 40 percent thought that.

The rate of use stayed steady, with 6.5 percent of high school 
seniors saying they regularly used marijuana in the past year.

The survey results were being released just weeks before recreational 
marijuana sales become legal in Colorado and Washington state for 
people over 21. Opponents of legalized marijuana long have said they 
worried about its impact on children.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but the Justice 
Department in August pledged not to target the marijuana industry in 
states where the drug has been legalized as long as the states keep 
pot away from children, other states, criminal cartels and federal 
property. While only two states have legalized the production, sale 
and use of recreational marijuana, 18 others and the District of 
Columbia allow medical marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom