Marijuana Prevails As Stable Addiction Among Teens; New Trend Arises in Substance Abuse

Experts discover that marijuana use continues to rise above alcohol and other addicting substances among teenagers, surpassing regular cigarettes on daily use.

According to recent data of 2015 Monitoring the Future, teenagers are consuming more marijuana and are cutting intake of cigarettes, opiates and heroin, CBS News reports.

The data show a general improvement of substance use among youngsters, but researchers are particularly concerned about the increasing rate of marijuana use, where it exceeds to 5.5 percent among the 12^th graders.

This is due to the recent news of the medicinal benefits of marijuana, which resulted to teenagers seeing it as less risky than the other options. However, experts believe that the continuous intake may lead to detrimental effects on the youngster's brain.

"Among teens, several studies provide evidence showing marijuana's [effects] are deleterious," said Nora D. Volkow, director of National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"Adolescents have less money than adults and are much more sensitive to differences in prices," she said. "With alcohol, there have been very aggressive campaigns in schools and to teach parents, no, it is not okay," 

"Also, re-enforcement of not selling alcohol to teens so it's harder for them to get their hands on it," she added.

The University of Michigan experts in Ann Arbor have been conducting the survey since 1975, measuring the teenager's behavior on addicting substances. Aside from marijuana use, they found out that there is a decline of MDMA, popularly known as Molly or Ecstasy, by 3.6 percent from 5 percent last year.

E-cigarettes continue to be popular with 21.5 percent increase compared to 10.9 percent last year. Data shows that some items labeled as "nicotine-free" may not be free from nicotine after all.

With the recent data on alcohol intake, researchers say it continues to decline from 43 percent to 41 percent. Among the 12^th graders, 37 percent said they got drunk in the past year, which is down from 41.4 percent in the previous survey.