New York, December 5 : Children in the US are ditching alcohol for marijuana as a 20-year national study shows a massive 245 per cent increase in adolescent cannabis abuse, while alcohol abuse has steadily declined over the same period. While rates of all marijuana abuse increased, edible marijuana showed the highest average monthly increase compared with all other forms, suggesting that adolescents have moved away from smoking weed onto alternative modes of consumption.
The majority of ingestions occurred in males (58.3 per cent), and more than 80 per cent of all reported exposure cases occurred in young people aged 13 to 18, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Clinical Toxicology. Marijuana, E-Cigarettes Can Harm Heart Like Tobacco Cigarettes, Says Study.
The study found over 338,000 instances of intentional abuse or misuse among American children aged 6-18. In total, over 32 per cent of instances resulted in “worse than minor clinical outcomes”. “Ethanol abuse cases exceeded the number of marijuana cases every year from 2000 until 2013,” said Adrienne Hughes, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.
However, by 2014 this trend had reversed. “Since 2014, marijuana exposure cases have exceeded ethanol cases every year, and by a greater amount each year than the prior,” Hughes added. Experts attribute the rise in marijuana use to the increased popularity of edible cannabis products,…
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