'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
More teens are turning to pot and see it as less of a risk at the same time alcohol use among the same age group has dipped to historic lows, according to an annual national survey of drug use released Wednesday.
U.S. teens are continuing to steer away from tobacco and alcohol, but seem to be warming up to marijuana, possibly because it has legal status as a medicine in some states, federal officials said Wednesday.
In 2010, American teens' past-month use of marijuana rose high enough to eclipse their use of cigarettes, according to a national report on teen substance abuse — a finding that the White House and public-health officials blamed in part on drug-legalization efforts.
There's been a lot of media coverage about the problems with bath salts, and "maybe a lot of kids have gotten the message," said Lloyd Johnston, the MTF survey's longtime principal investigator.
"This is very good news for the health and longevity of these young people. ... Even a reduction of only one percentage point can translate into thousands of premature deaths being prevented," said University of Michigan research professor Lloyd Johnston, the longtime principal investigator for Monitoring the Future.
