Today's marijuana can have stronger effects on developing teen brain

Despite marijuana being the primary reason teenagers enter substance abuse treatment programs and the primary reason for visiting hospital emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse, most high school seniors think regular marijuana use is not harmful according to 2013 Monitoring the Future results.

The survey reports that 39.5 percent of 12th graders view regular marijuana use as harmful, down from last year’s rate of 44.1 percent, and considerably lower than rates from the last two decades.



The rates of marijuana use also show significant changes in the past two decades, with 6.5 percent of seniors smoking marijuana daily compared to 6 percent in 2003 and 2.4 percent in 1993.

“This is not just an issue of increased daily use,” said NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D. “It is important to remember that over the past two decades, levels of THC — the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — have gone up a great deal, from 3.75 percent in 1995 to an average of 15 percent in today’s marijuana cigarettes. Daily use today can have stronger effects on a developing teen brain than it did 10 or 20 years ago.”

Nearly 23 percent of seniors say they smoked marijuana in the month prior to the survey, and just over 36 percent say they smoked it during the past year.  For 10th graders, 4 percent say they use marijuana daily, with 18 percent reporting past month use and 29.8 percent reporting use in the previous year. More than 12 percent of eighth graders say they used marijuana in the past year.

“We should be extremely concerned that 12 percent of 13- to 14-year-olds are using marijuana,” Volkow added. “The children whose experimentation leads to regular use are setting themselves up for declines in IQ and diminished ability for success in life.”

2010 Healthy Youth Survey results available online

Statewide results from the 2010 Healthy Youth Survey are now available on the Department of Health website. 

According to the survey, given in October to all 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in Washington, more students are making healthier choices by avoiding alcohol. In the past 20 years, there’s been a big drop in 8th and 10th graders who report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days. Since 1990, youth drinking is down for 8th graders by over half, from 29 to 14 percent in 2010. Drinking among 10th graders has dropped from 44 to 28 percent. Since 2008, about 20,000 more youth in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade report that their parents talked to them about not drinking alcohol.


While our state has made gains in preventing underage drinking, the same cannot be said for youth marijuana use. 

-- Marijuana use among 12th graders increased from 23% to 26% (compared to 20% of 12th graders who smoke cigarettes).

-- Fewer students believe regular use of marijuana is a great risk: down from 63% to 59% among 8th graders; from 52% to 46% among 10th th graders.   As perception of harm goes down, drug use increases.


Statewide data is available online.  Seattle Public Schools anticipates releasing school-level data in April.