New Zealand teen cannabis use down, linked to anti-smoking campaigns

Smoking stigma turns teens off marijuana – New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz

Changing attitudes to cigarette smoking are being linked to a reduction in the number of teenagers smoking cannabis, drug experts say.

An Auckland University student health and wellbeing survey released this week found a considerable drop in the rates of cigarette and cannabis use, which the Drug Foundation believed is linked to anti-smoking campaigns.

Director Ross Bell said the significant drop in cannabis use – from 39 per cent of secondary school students in 2001 to 27 per cent last year – was a good shift as the drug affected adolescent brain development.

He believed New Zealand’s long-running anti-smoking campaign, focusing on how smoking damages the lungs, had influenced teens’ perception of all forms of smoking.

“Young people are transferring the view that smoking is bad for you to anything they smoke, whether it’s pot or tobacco.”

See what happens when you gove young people realistic and truthful information about drugs?  Tobacco smoking in America is down to below 20% of our population for the first time since they began measuring those rates.  Tobacco smoking is down in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe as well.

Now it is perfectly natural for cannabis smoking rates to also decline.  Smoking – anything – is a health risk.  We know that smoking cannabis is far less harmful than smoking tobacco, but inhaling any carbonized vegetable matter into your lungs is not what you’d call a healthy choice.  I always encourage any adult cannabis consumer to use a vaporizer or edibles, though that’s one of those “do as I say, not as I do” encouragements, because I love the act of smoking a joint, pipe, or bong.  There’s something about smoke that has a grounding effect, that makes me feel in touch with nature and earth.