Number of Teens Who Vape Marijuana Doubled in 7 Years

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Oct. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Teenagers have adopted the vaping development into marijuana use, with current research chronicling a growth in pot vaping amongst adolescents within the United States and Canada, researchers report.

The proportion of teenagers who’ve experimented with vaped pot has greater than doubled in recent times, and vaping amongst frequent marijuana customers has quadrupled, in accordance with the examine.

Currently about 1 in 8 North American youngsters have vaped pot throughout the final yr, and practically 1 in 10 throughout the previous month, in accordance with a brand new evaluation of knowledge pooled from 17 totally different research.

“The prevalence of adolescent hashish vaping is on an upward trajectory within the U.S. and Canada,” mentioned lead researcher Carmen Lim, a PhD candidate with the University of Queensland’s National Center for Youth Substance Use Research in Australia. “We additionally discovered adolescents’ choice for hashish merchandise could also be shifting from much less potent merchandise like natural hashish to extremely potent vape oil and concentrates.”

The proportion of teenagers who’d ever tried marijuana vaping elevated from round 6% in 2013-2016 to just about 14% in 2019-2020. During that very same interval, children who vaped pot over the previous yr elevated from 7% to 13%.

More frequent pot customers dove into vaping at an excellent sooner price, with the proportion of teenagers vaping pot throughout the previous month greater than quadrupling — rising from lower than 2% to greater than 8%.

This new evaluation did not evaluate total pot use amongst teenagers, so it isn’t clear whether or not extra children are utilizing pot because of vaping or if children who smoke pot have switched to vaping, Lim mentioned.

Experts mentioned it is extremely seemingly children are switching to vape pens from joints, as the general variety of pot-using teenagers has elevated extra slowly.

“As each vaping and hashish have gotten extra acceptable in society and smoking is much less most popular, it appears pure that younger folks would undertake this type of substance consumption,” mentioned Patricia Folan, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y.

These numbers got here from information pooled from practically 200,000 adolescents who participated in research on pot use between 2013 and 2020, researchers mentioned.

Vaping makes entry simple

Addiction consultants mentioned it is seemingly that the components that made e-cigarettes so common amongst teenagers has additionally pushed the rise in pot vaping.

The use of vaping merchandise total elevated 13-fold within the United States amongst center and highschool college students between 2011 and 2018, researchers mentioned in background notes.

“The marijuana pen is simply a lot simpler to entry. You pop it in your backpack, you are taking it out, you retain puffing it in the course of the day. Nobody smells it, and you do not actually get that very same stage of depth with the coughing,” mentioned Dr. Scott Krakower, a toddler and adolescent psychiatrist and substance abuse remedy professional at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y.

It’s additionally seemingly that the persevering with wave of marijuana legalization additionally has contributed to extra children vaping pot, mentioned Linda Richter, vice chairman of prevention analysis and evaluation for the Partnership to End Addiction.

“I can not say I’m shocked by the meteoric rise in marijuana vaping amongst adolescents, given the substantial shift in public attitudes about marijuana’s security, the rising availability of unregulated vaping merchandise, and the stealth nature of vaping versus smoking marijuana,” Richter mentioned. “Adolescents, together with adults, have been lulled right into a false sense of security about marijuana.”

The drawback is that pot vape liquid tends to be extra far more potent than dried weed, which by itself has elevated in efficiency over time, Richter and Krakower mentioned.

“Too many dad and mom nonetheless imagine that the marijuana that teenagers are utilizing as we speak isn’t any extra dangerous than the marijuana they smoked after they have been youngsters,” Richter mentioned. “But the efficiency of marijuana has quadrupled over the previous couple of many years and the focus of THC is much greater in as we speak’s merchandise, particularly in vapes and edibles, than it was within the marijuana they used to smoke.”

That efficiency turns into much more troubling when one considers how vape pens are used versus smoking, Krakower added.

Rather than furtively smoking a single joint, children are free to puff repeatedly on a pot vape pen as incessantly as they like, Krakower famous. Not solely does the weed hit them tougher, however they can take tokes off the pen all day.

Parents want to concentrate to their children’ pot use and intervene, Richter mentioned.

“If a toddler is utilizing marijuana repeatedly, dad and mom should not brush it off as a innocent part, however ought to search assist and intervene earlier than it turns right into a marijuana use dysfunction, or results in different harmful well being and security penalties,” Richter mentioned.

Lim and Richter added that regulators and legislators have to step in and extra strictly regulate teenagers’ entry to all marijuana merchandise.

“We are at some extent within the marijuana legalization debate on this nation the place we are able to nonetheless forestall the worst of what commercializing an addictive substance can inflict on children,” Richter mentioned. “For these states that select to legalize the drug for grownup use, there are lots of provisions that may be written into the legislation and rules to guard youth from being uncovered to, accessing and utilizing the drug.”

The new examine was printed Oct. 25 within the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

More data

The Partnership to End Addiction has recommendation for folks about teen pot use.

SOURCES: Carmen Lim, PhD candidate, University of Queensland’s National Center for Youth Substance Use Research, Australia; Patricia Folan, DNP, director, Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health, Great Neck, N.Y.; Scott Krakower, DO, youngster and adolescent psychiatrist, and substance abuse remedy professional, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, N.Y.; Linda Richter, PhD, vice chairman, prevention analysis and evaluation, Partnership to End Addiction; JAMA Pediatrics, Oct. 25, 2021