Survey: Teen marijuana use rises, alcohol use down

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LANSING, Michigan (AP) — More U.S. teens are using marijuana and see it as less of a risk, while their alcohol use has dipped to historic lows, according to an annual national survey of drug use released Wednesday.

The findings are based on an annual survey of 47,000 teens conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

One of every 15 high school seniors reported smoking marijuana on a daily or near daily basis, the highest rate since 1981.

"One thing we've learned over the years is that when young people come to see a drug as dangerous, they're less likely to use it," Lloyd Johnston, the study's principal investigator, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "That helps to explain why marijuana right now is rising, because the proportion of kids who see it as dangerous has been declining."

The study said marijuana use among teens rose in 2011 for the fourth straight year after considerable decline in the preceding decade.

One of every nine students in their last year of school before college reported using synthetic marijuana within the previous 12 months.

The synthetic drug survey question was asked for the first time this year. Fake marijuana, sometimes sold in drug paraphernalia shops and on the Internet as incense, contains organic leaves coated with chemicals that provide a marijuana-like high when smoked.

A Drug Enforcement Administration emergency order banning the sale of five chemicals used in herbal blends to make synthetic marijuana took effect March 1. Many states also have their own laws banning the sale of synthetic marijuana.

White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske called on parents to get involved to help stop the use of synthetic marijuana.

"It's not in the vocabulary of parents, and they need to be aware of it so that when they have that conversation about substance abuse that they are knowledgeable and they talk about this," he told the AP.

Alcohol use continued a trend of decline dating to the 1980s and hit a historic low for the survey, which began in the 1970s.

Other drugs showing some evidence of decline in use this year include cocaine, crack cocaine and inhalants.

___

Online:

The survey can be found at http://www.monitoringthefuture.org

Associated Press

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Why Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Traffic Deaths

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States that legalize medical marijuana see fewer fatal car accidents, according to a new study, in part because people may be substituting marijuana smoking for drinking alcohol.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, have legalized medical marijuana since the mid-1990s. For the new study, economists looked at 1990-2009 government data on marijuana use and traffic deaths in the 13 states that had passed legalization laws during that time period. The data were from the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Comparing traffic deaths over time in states with and without medical marijuana law changes, the researchers found that fatal car wrecks dropped by 9% in states that legalized medical use — which was largely attributable to a decline in drunk driving. The researchers controlled for other factors like changes in driving laws and the number of miles driven that could affect the results.

Medical marijuana laws were not significantly linked with changes in daytime crash rates or those that didn't involve alcohol. But the rate of fatal crashes in which a driver had consumed any alcohol dropped 12% after medical marijuana was legalized, and crashes involving high levels of alcohol consumption fell 14%.

MORE: Study: Legal Medical Marijuana Doesn't Encourage Kids to Smoke More Pot

The authors found that medical marijuana laws reduced crashes in more men than women—by 13% compared to 9%— in line with data showing that men are more likely to register as medical marijuana users than women.

The overall reduction in traffic deaths was comparable to that seen after the national minimum drinking age was raised to 21, the authors note.

"We were astounded by how little is known about the effects of legalizing medical marijuana," lead author Daniel Rees, professor of economics at the University of Colorado-Denver, said in a statement. "We looked into traffic fatalities because there is good data, and the data allow us to test whether alcohol was a factor. ... Traffic fatalities are an important outcome from a policy perspective because they represent the leading cause of death among Americans ages 5 to 34."

The authors also found that in states that legalized medical use, there was no increase in marijuana smoking by teenagers — a finding seen in other studies as well. But, in many cases, the laws were linked with an increase in marijuana smoking among adults in their 20s; this rise was accompanied by a reduction in alcohol use by college age youth, suggesting that they were smoking weed instead.

Studies have consistently found that while mixing either marijuana or alcohol with driving is unadvisable, driving high is much safer than driving drunk. Research on stoned driving is inconsistent, with some studies finding impairment and others not; the alcohol data, however, is clear in establishing a link between drinking and significant deterioration in driving skills. The data also consistently shows that using both drugs together is worst of all.

MORE: Study: Whites More Likely to Abuse Drugs Than Blacks

Driving under the influence of marijuana seems to be less risky because people who are high tend to be aware that they are impaired and compensate, while alcohol tends to increase recklessness and create false confidence. Also, people are more likely to smoke weed at home or in private, rather than out at bars or other public events that require driving to get to.

The research was published by IZA, a nonprofit labor research organization associated with the University of Bonn in Germany. It is a working paper, which means it has not yet been subjected to peer review.

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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Obama's Misguided Crackdown on Medical Marijuana

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Why is the government cracking down on medical marijuana, a $1.7 billion business in California alone — and one of the few that seems to be thriving in a moribund economy?

In early October, the Justice Department announced it would be targeting medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Calling large dispensaries "profiteers" that "hijacked" California's medical marijuana law and were "motivated not by compassion but by money," the state's four U.S. attorneys announced the arrests of two major dispensary owners and a lawyer they accused of making millions from growing the drug.

It was a reversal of President Obama's campaign promise to end the previous administration's legal pursuit of medical marijuana. Although Obama's justice department had previously abided by a memo, which said that prosecuting marijuana providers and patients who followed state law was not an "efficient use of federal resources," over the summer the administration changed tactics, expressing concern about "an increase in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana for purported medical purposes." It began sending letters to dispensaries and their landlords threatening forfeiture of the property if marijuana sales did not stop.

The IRS has also begun its own crackdown on California dispensaries. It now claims that the dispensaries owe back taxes because all of their business deductions are illegal. In addition, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms recently warned gun dealers not to sell to users of medical marijuana.

MORE: More Evidence That Marijuana-Like Drugs May Help Prevent PTSD

Ironically, national support for medical marijuana is currently at a high, at about 70%, and more and more advocates are calling for total legalization of the drug. For the first time ever, Gallup found last week that more Americans support making marijuana use legal: 50% of Americans support legalization, with 46% opposed. That's up from just 12% in favor in 1969.

Support for legalization is even higher in younger age groups: 62% of those aged 18 to 29 want legal marijuana, while just 31% of those over 65 favor changing the current law. As boomers and even more weed-friendly Gen-Xers age, pro-legalization sentiment continues to grow.

Now add to that, support for legalization from the California Medical Association, the state's largest group representing doctors, with some 35,000 members. In this context, medical marijuana doesn't seem like a crime voters are clamoring to prosecute.

It's not likely that the federal crackdown will actually affect marijuana consumption, either. Studies repeatedly find little effect of law enforcement spending on demand for drugs. Indeed, a recent marijuana price analysis by a collective of geographers called The Floating Sheep (you can't make this stuff up!) — based on crowd-sourced data on the street value of marijuana by quantity, quality and location — found no correlation between the local cost of marijuana and the number of arrests for dealing or possession in the state.

MORE: Medical Marijuana Sales Grow to Rival Viagra's: New Report

Rather, price is correlated with location. As the Atlantic's Richard Florida describes it:

Their main finding is that marijuana prices rise the further a location is from the major center of production. Decreased supply leads to a rise in transportation costs and risk. Clearly pot prices are as low as they are in the Pacific Northwest and Florida for the same reasons that potatoes are cheap in Idaho and corn is cheap in Iowa — because they're close to the source, the places where the product is either grown, imported, processed, or all three.

(Incidentally, the nationwide average price for an ounce of high quality smoke: $377.02)

It seems unlikely that spending scarce federal dollars during a recession on a medical marijuana crackdown is going to win any awards for "efficient" use of government resources from either the right or the left. In fact, I seem to recall that there's a Senate committee desperately seeking quick budget cuts around now: in view of these facts, do you think they should slash schools, meals for seniors, health care spending, cancer research, unemployment benefits, firefighter or police salaries — or the war on medical marijuana?

MORE: U.S. Rules That Marijuana Has No Medical Use. What Does Science Say?

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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Dutch to Classify High-Potency Marijuana as a Hard Drug

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The Dutch government said Friday it would move to classify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country's ongoing reversal of its famed tolerance policies.

The decision means most of the cannabis now sold in the Netherlands' weed cafes would have to be replaced by milder variants. But skeptics said the move would be difficult to enforce, and that it could simply lead many users to smoke more of the less potent weed.

Possession of marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but police do not prosecute people for possession of small amounts, and it is sold openly in designated cafes. Growers are routinely prosecuted if caught.

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Economic Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said weed containing more than 15 percent of its main active chemical, THC, is so much stronger than what was common a generation ago that it should be considered a different drug entirely.

The high potency weed has “played a role in increasing public health damage,” he said at a press conference in The Hague.

The Cabinet has not said when it will begin enforcing the rule.

Jeffrey Parsons, a psychologist at Hunter College in New York who studies addiction, said the policy may not have the benefits the government is hoping for.

“If it encourages smoking an increased amount of low-concentration THC weed, it is likely to actually cause more harm than good,” he said, citing the potential lung damage and cancer-causing effects of extra inhalation.

VIDEO: Weed Be Gone: Will Amsterdam Ban Pot for Tourists?

The Dutch Justice Ministry said Friday it was up to cafes to regulate their own products and police will seize random samples for testing.

But Gerrit-Jan ten Bloomendal, spokesman for the Platform of Cannabis Businesses in the Netherlands, said implementing the plan would be difficult “if not impossible.”

“How are we going to know whether a given batch exceeds 15 percent THC? For that matter, how would health inspectors know?” he said. He predicted a black market will develop for highly potent weed.

The ongoing Dutch crackdown on marijuana is part of a decade-long rethink of liberalism in general that has seen a third of the windows in Amsterdam's famed prostitution district shuttered and led the Netherlands to adopt some of the toughest immigration rules in Europe.

The number of licensed marijuana cafes has been reduced, and earlier this year the government announced plans to ban tourists from buying weed. That has been resisted by the city of Amsterdam, where the marijuana cafes known euphemistically as “coffee shops” are a major tourist draw.

Marjan Heuving of the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute, which studies mental health and addiction, said there is a growing body of evidence that THC causes mental illnesses.

MORE: U.S. Rules That Marijuana Has No Medical Use. What Does Science Say?

She said it stands to reason “the more THC the body takes in, the more the impact.” But it has not been demonstrated scientifically that high THC weed is worse for mental health, she said.

Parsons of Hunter College said it remains difficult to be sure whether marijuana causes mental problems or whether people predisposed to, say, depression seek it out as a form of self-medication.

The Trimbos Institute says the average amount of THC in Dutch marijuana is currently around 17.8 percent. It has been declining since 2004 after increasing steadily from 4 percent or so in the 1970s.

By comparison, in the United States the average level of THC in marijuana is around 10 percent and rising, according to the last measure released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2009.

MORE: 'Magic Mushrooms' Trigger Lasting Personality Change

Heuving agreed with Ten Bloomendal that determining THC levels outside of a laboratory setting would prove difficult, as exact content varies widely from batch to batch and even within a single plant.

“I don't know of any home test,” she said. “How this is going to work in practical terms, I have no idea.”

—By TOBY STERLING

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Smoking marijuana not relating to obesity: study

NEW YORK | Sun Sep 11, 2011 10: 22 pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - who marijuana smoked has "the munchies," knows, that want to eat anything within reach. But a study from France has found that, surprisingly, actually less often than non-smoking, weight to put pot smokers.
Researchers led by Yann Le STRAT, a psychiatrist in the Louis Mourier hospital in Colombes, France, were found that approximately 14 to 17 percent of people reported that they smoked pot at least three days a week obese with data for more than 50,000 adults in the United States.
That compared with 22 to 25 percent obesity among people who said they had used not pot in the past 12 months.
"Initially, we thought we made a mistake," Le STRAT, adding that he said and co-author Bernard Le foll the results checked several times to ensure that they were correct.
"This is only a preliminary earnings." "It does not mean that marijuana really help to lose weight, but maybe there's a component that does."
The study, published in the American Journal of epidemiology, contain two surveys of adults in the USA-one about 43,000 people, the other about 9,300 respondents. Both had of branches of the US national institutes of health between 2001 and 2009 performed.
The larger the surveys found that 14 percent of the pot were obese smokers compared to 22 percent, the pot smoking not. Also the smaller survey found 17 percent of the pot-smoking obese be compared to 25 percent of the non-smoking.
All respondents two surveys smoked pot between four and seven percent, she said at least three times a week.
Whether she had smoked cigarettes also does not affect the results of obesity, although researchers not look at whether nutrition and lack of exercise in pot smokers and non-smokers were different.
According to an another recent survey from the substance abuse and mental health services administration is pot use on the rise in the United States. Almost 16 million US citizens, marijuana used an increase of around 15 million in 2007 in 2010.
Scientists have the role to block various molecules within marijuana smoke, high feeling, pain, and may be subject to the hunger for food in the rule provoked, explored by using pot.
Cannabinoids, molecules natural signaling chemicals in the body, similar to be believed, too stimulated to key Appetit--so much so that in 2006, a drug called rimonabant, designed to combat cannabinoids, work has been developed.
Rimonabant has been in more than 30 countries, but not in the United States, for the treatment of obesity. But the drug was pulled from shelves two years later by an increased risk of suicide among its users.
Whether cannabinoids are the only appetite stimulants in pot smoke, or other chemicals could take account of the impact, remains to be seen, the researchers say.
Other experts said that the results, which does not surprise her.
"There is no evidence of that repeatedly, body weight, can increase use of marijuana," said Vincenzo Di Marzo, Professor at the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry in Pozzuoli, Italy, which was not part of the study.
He warned that the study does not appear that smoking pot helps you lose weight, but that it could be a starting point for future research.
Le STRAT echoed this view and warned before experiment with pot as a diet aid.
"I see people with marijuana addiction." "I hope that people will not interpret the results mean that if they use marijuana, they are to lose weight", he added. Source: bit.ly/mQOCXt

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Smoking marijuana not relating to obesity: study

By Linda Thrasybule
NEW YORK | September 9, 2011 5: 16 pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - can people, vulnerable to "the munchies" smoke the marijuana, but surprisingly, they are less likely than proposes non-smoking to pack the pounds, a new study from France.
Analyzing data, for more than 50,000 American adults, the researchers found that approximately 14 to 17 percent of people were reported that they smoked pot at least three days a week obese. That compared with 22 to 25 percent obesity among people who said they had used not pot in the past 12 months.
"Initially, we thought that we have a mistake", Dr. Yann Le STRAT is a psychiatrist in the Louis Mourier hospital in Colombes, France said. He and co-author Dr. Bernard Le foll had several times to check the results, to ensure that they were incorrect, said Le STRAT.
Le STRAT "This is only a preliminary earnings," said Reuters Health. "It does not mean that marijuana really help to lose weight, but maybe there's a component that does."
The study, published in the American Journal of epidemiology, contain two surveys of adults in the United States - one about 43,000 people, over 9,300 other respondents. Both had of branches of the US national institutes of health between 2001 and 2003 performed.
The larger the polls not found 14 percent of the pot smokers obese compared to 22 percent, the pot smoking. Also the smaller survey found 17 percent of the pot-smoking obese be compared to 25 percent of the non-smoking.
All respondents two surveys smoked pot between four and seven percent, she said at least three times a week.
Whether she had smoked cigarettes also does not affect the results of obesity.
The researchers consider not whether diet and lack of exercise were different in pot smokers and non-smoking.
According to an another recent poll, from the substance abuse and mental health services administration is pot use on the rise in the United States marijuana 2010 a nearly 18 million Americans a year increase of around 15 million in 2007.
Scientists have the role to block various molecules within marijuana smoke, high feeling, pain, and may be subject to the hunger for food in the rule provoked, explored by using pot.
Cannabinoids, molecules natural signaling chemicals in the body, similar to be believed, key to stimulates appetite. Was so much so that in 2006 a drug rimonabant, called, which is designed to combat cannabinoids, developed.
Rimonabant has been in more than 30 countries-but not in the USA-for the treatment of obesity. But the drug was pulled from shelves two years later by an increased risk of suicide among users.
Whether cannabinoids pot are the only appetite stimulants in smoke, or whether other chemicals for the effect could take into account, remains to be seen, the researchers say.
Dr. Vincenzo Di Marzo, Professor at the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry in Pozzuoli, Italy, who was not part of the study, was not in the meantime their results at all surprised. "There is no evidence, that repeatedly body weight can increase use of marijuana."
Di Marzo precautions, which don't, see the study that smoking pot helps you lose weight, but he believes that it is a starting point for future research.
Le STRAT warned against feeling and also experiment with pot as a diet aid.
"I see people with marijuana dependence," explained Le STRAT. "I hope that people do not interpret the results mean that if they use marijuana, they are to lose weight."

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