Pubdate: Wed, 17 Dec 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

SURVEY: NO JUMP IN TEEN POT USE IN PAST FOUR YEARS

The Findings Come Even As the U.S. Has Seen Changes in Legality and 
Availability.

Teen use of marijuana has not increased in the past four years 
nationwide, even as the country has undergone a transformation in 
marijuana's legality and availability, according to the results of a 
survey released Tuesday.

Instead, the annual Monitoring the Future survey found that various 
measures of teen marijuana use across the country decreased slightly 
in 2014. When all age groups in the study are combined, teens 
reporting ever having used marijuana dropped in 2014 by 1.4 percent, 
and teens reporting past month use of marijuana dropped by 1.2 
percent. Two other measurements of use also declined.

Marijuana use by middle and high school students - especially 
frequent use - is now as low as it has been in the past four to six 
years. It remains, though, generally at or above the 10-year average.

"We have not seen increases in the use, which is something we were 
afraid would happen," Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute 
on Drug Abuse, said in a Tuesday conference call with reporters.

Overall, the survey found that about 30 percent of teens questioned 
said they had used marijuana in their lifetimes, while about 14 
percent said they had used marijuana in the previous month.

The survey did not provide Colorado-specific data.

The Monitoring the Future study has been conducted every year for the 
past 40 years. It currently measures marijuana use at three age 
groups - eighth-graders, 10th-graders and 12th-graders - and across 
four different measurements - lifetime use, yearly use, monthly use 
and daily use.

The slight drops in marijuana use fit with a year that saw bigger 
drops in prescription drug abuse, alcohol use and cigarette smoking. 
Lloyd Johnston, the study's architect at the University of Michigan, 
said the overall results were "music to the ears of the nation's parents."

But Volkow was less pleased with the study's findings on marijuana 
use, which she said "continues to be at very high levels." She noted 
that teens' perception of marijuana's harmfulness declined again in 
the survey, something health officials have suggested could be a 
precursor to greater use.

She also noted that the survey found a shift in how marijuana is 
consumed in medical marijuana states. Teens in such states were about 
50 percent likelier to consume marijuana in edible products than 
teens in states without medical marijuana laws, according to the 
survey. Volkow said more study is needed to determine the 
"bio-availability" of pot in the body after consuming edibles and how 
that might affect the brain differently.

The national survey fits with a Colorado survey released this year 
that also found slight drops in marijuana use, even as perceptions of 
marijuana's harms also decreased.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom