Marijuana, Vaping more famous than cigarettes among teenagers, finds survey

Washington : Cigarette smoking has dropped significantly among teenagers but that is not a good news as they have shifted their interest to even more harmful vaping and marijuana, said a national survey of adolescent drug use released Thursday.

The survey was conducted in the United States of America teens by the federal government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse under the administration of the University of Michigan.

According to the findings in the survey, 22.9 percent of high school seniors said they had used marijuana within the previous 30 days and 16.6 percent had used a vaping device. Only 9.7 percent had smoked cigarettes.

The survey was conducted on a sample size of 43,703 teens from eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade in public and private schools. It found that teenagers’ consumption of most substances — including alcohol, tobacco, prescription opioids and stimulants — has either fallen or held steady at last year’s levels, the lowest rates in 20 years.

“We’re impressed by the improvement in substance use by all teenagers,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the institute.

Still, Dr. Compton continued, “we don’t yet know about the health problems in vaping.”

Vaping devices, which typically vaporize substances into an inhalant, are perceived by some experts as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes because they do not include carcinogens that come with burning tobacco.