Wednesday, 18 Dec 2019 01:11 PM MYTCHICAGO, Dec 18 — More than 20% of US high school seniors reported vaping marijuana in 2019, the second largest single-year increase in any substance of abuse ever recorded in the annual study of national drug use trends, researchers reported today.funded by the National Institutes of Health are alarming as federal officials continue to investigate fatal lung injuries associated with vaping.
Among 12th graders, that amounted to a 7.7 percentage-point increase, the second-largest for any substance in the study’s 45-year history. The largest occurred last year, when it reported a 10.9 percentage-point gain in nicotine vaping, which the US Food and Drug Administration characterised as a national epidemic.
“Vaping allows teens to get around the policies and procedures put in place to prevent teen drug use,” he said. “It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of substance abuse. There’s good research out there showing any kid who does any of those is more likely to do the other ones,” Glantz said in a phone interview.
This year’s survey measured daily marijuana vaping for the first time, defined as 20 or more times a month, and found it occurs in 3.5% of 12th graders, 3% of 10th graders and 0.8% of eighth graders.