By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Could 20, 2022 (HealthDay Information)
A rising variety of U.S. youngsters are vaping marijuana — a behavior that in some methods could also be extra dangerous than old style pot smoking, a brand new research finds.
Researchers discovered that between 2017 and 2019, the share of teenagers who reported any marijuana use in the previous month ticked upward barely — from 13.9% to fifteen.4%.
What actually modified, the research discovered, was how youngsters had been utilizing the drug. There was a pointy improve in vaping, whereas conventional marijuana smoking declined.
The share of youngsters who stated they vaped marijuana “regularly” — no less than as soon as every week — greater than doubled, from 2.1% to five.4%. Occasional use (one to 6 occasions a month) rose to an analogous diploma.
On the similar time, the proportion of youngsters who smoke marijuana declined. In essence, vaping gave the impression to be changing smoking, in response to lead researcher Katherine Keyes, a professor at Columbia College Mailman College of Public Well being in New York Metropolis.
She stated she might solely speculate concerning the causes. However the rising reputation of vaping nicotine, together with legalization and altering social norms round marijuana, are possible elements, Keyes stated.
These factors had been echoed by Linda Richter, vp of prevention analysis and evaluation for the nonprofit Partnership to Finish Habit.
She stated previous analysis presents some “compelling explanations” for the tendencies seen in this research.
“First, the wave of nicotine vaping that unfold all through center and excessive colleges over the previous a number of years elevated the probability that children who vape nicotine will transition to vaping marijuana,” stated Richter, who was not concerned in the research.
Vaping, she added, has turn out to be “normalized,” whereas on the similar time “pro-marijuana messages” have grown.
“Vaped merchandise are additionally usually seen as safer and more healthy than smoked merchandise, as a result of when e-cigarettes had been initially launched to the market, they had been marketed as safer options to cigarette smoking,” Richter stated.
However vaping is way from benign. And relating to marijuana, Keyes stated, vaping can really ship a better dose of THC than smoking does. THC is the energetic ingredient behind marijuana’s “excessive.”
That larger THC dose, Richter stated, can “hook younger individuals to the substance and hold them coming again for extra.”
And whereas vaping doesn’t contain smoke, the liquids used in vaporizers do include probably poisonous chemical substances, Richter identified. Vitamin E acetate, an additive in some THC-containing vaping merchandise, has been linked to extreme — and typically deadly — lung accidents.
That lack of smoke can also be an issue of types: Children can conceal marijuana vaping extra simply than smoking, Richter stated, as a result of there isn’t any telltale pot odor.
The brand new findings — printed Could 19 in the journal Habit — are primarily based on greater than 51,000 U.S. teenagers who took half in annual well being survey between 2017 and 2019.
Throughout that point, marijuana vaping rose amongst girls and boys, with a big spike in these utilizing no less than as soon as every week: from 2.9% to six.2% amongst boys, and from 1.3% to 4.7% amongst women.
By 2019, marijuana vaping was extra widespread than conventional pot smoking amongst all racial and ethnic teams, aside from Black teenagers.
Keyes additionally pointed to a discovering from a earlier research of the identical group of teenagers: Highschool seniors reported an particularly sharp rise in marijuana vaping — with the prevalence almost tripling, from 5% to 14%.
The vaping craze presents mother and father with some tough points, in response to Keyes and Richter. Not solely is marijuana use tougher to note, however youngsters are additionally seeing marijuana vaping merchandise marketed all over the place, together with on social media, they identified.
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“It isn’t a matter of whether or not your baby might be uncovered to this, however when,” Keyes stated. “One of the best factor mother and father can do is to speak to their youngsters about marijuana use, and begin early — in center college.”
Richter agreed, encouraging mother and father to take a “well being relatively than a punitive method” to these conversations.
Extra info
Partnership to Finish Habit has recommendation for folks on speaking about marijuana.
SOURCES: Katherine Keyes, PhD, professor, epidemiology, Columbia College Mailman College of Public Well being, New York Metropolis; Linda Richter, PhD, vp, prevention analysis and evaluation, Partnership to Finish Habit, New York Metropolis; Habit, Could 19, 2022, on-line
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