Marijuana use among U.S.
college students is the highest since 1980, according to findings from a
national survey released Sept. 1. For the first time in 35 years, kids on
campuses around the country are smoking more marijuana than cigarettes, the
University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study found.
Study results showed that
daily or near-daily marijuana use was reported by 5.9 percent of college
students in 2014, up from 3.5 percent in 2007. That means one in every 17
college kids is smoking pot nearly every day.
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| College Students Smoke Pot Daily than Cigarettes |
Source: HEALTH AND WELLNESS BLOG INDIA
“It’s clear
that for the past seven or eight years there has been an increase in marijuana
use among the nation’s college students,” principal investigator Lloyd
Johnston, PhD, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said in a university
news release. “This largely parallels an increase we have been seeing among
high school seniors,” he added.
Johnston and his
colleagues theorize that the increase in marijuana smoking may stem from the
fact that its use at any level has come to be seen as dangerous by fewer
adolescents and young adults. They also point to the legalization of the drug
in states across the country as a reason for changing attitudes. In 2006, 55
percent of all 19-to-22-year-old high school graduates thought regular
marijuana use dangerous. That number fell to 35 percent in 2014.
If college students are
changing their minds about the dangers of pot, they have also shifted their
thoughts about cigarette smoking. Only 5 percent reported smoking cigarettes on
a daily or near-daily basis, compared with 19 percent in 1999.
“These
declines in cigarette smoking at colleges are largely the result of fewer of
these students smoking when they were still in high school,” Johnston
explained. “Nevertheless, it is particularly good news that their smoking rates
have fallen so substantially.”
There is, however, a
downside. The decline in cigarette smoking has given rise to increased use of
other tobacco and nicotine products, including hookahs and e-cigarettes.
The researchers also
looked at the use of illicit drugs other than marijuana and discovered a
significant increase. College kids’ use of these drugs jumped from 15 percent
in 2008 to 21 percent by 2014. According to the news release, the increase is
attributable “mostly to students’ increased use of amphetamines (without
doctor’s orders) and use of ecstasy.”
Cocaine use also showed a
statistically significant increase over a 12-month period. Use of the drug went
from 2.7 percent in 2013 to 4.4 percent in 2014.Still, the researches are not
ready to draw any conclusions about its use.
“We are being
cautious in interpreting this one-year increase, which we do not see among high
school students; but we do see some increase in cocaine use in other young
adult bands, so there may be in fact an increase in cocaine use beginning to
occur,” Johnston said.
However, use of other
illicit drugs – narcotics, heroin, prescription painkillers and tranquilizers –
was found to be on the decline. The study authors noted that use of heroin has
been very low among college students over the past five years or so – falling
to numbers lower than they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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| Marijuana use by U.S. college students up, highest in 35 years |
To parents sending children off to college this fall, Johnston offered some encouragement. “There is some welcome news … five out of every 10 college students have not used any illicit drugs in the past year, and more than three-quarters have not used any in the prior month,” he said.
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