Marijuana Blog

New statistics from the Center for Disease Control shows that while cigarette use among teens has remained steady, marijuana use is going up. While only 18% of teens admitted to smoking cigarettes in the latest survey, 23% said they used cannabis.

Howell Wechsler, the director of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, said, "For the first time since CDC began collecting YRBS [National Youth Risk Behavior Survey] data in 1991, current marijuana use among U.S. high school students was more common than current cigarette use.

“YRBS results also show that from 2009 to 2011, there's been no significant progress in reducing cigarette use, while marijuana use among high school students is on the rise,” he said.

Many will hysterically call this awful news, but things need to be seen a little deeper. While only adults would use marijuana in a perfect world, that’s simply not the case. And when you are comparing thing teens could be experimenting with, which would you prefer, marijuana or cigarettes?

You can replace “cigarettes” with just about any other recreational substance and marijuana is safer. It’s impossible to overdose. In fact, many of the things teenagers do every day are more dangerous than marijuana, including driving, eating fast food and having sex.

Teens will always experiment with things, they have since the beginning of mankind. But is it really helpful to demonize marijuana when just about everything else they do is more dangerous? Why drive them away from marijuana to something that will be far worse for them?

The key, as it is with everything, is the truth. Be honest with your kids about what substances will do to them. But if you fill their heads with horror and doom about cannabis, something like cigarettes will seem less dangerous.

The truth will set you free.

Source: http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2471881&spid=