Welp, looks like that was a bit premature.
Just last week, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy sounded the sirens on e-cigarette use among teens as a “major public health concern.”
Oops: It turns out teen vaping is on the decline.
So reports the National Institutes of Health in their annual Monitoring the Future survey: Compared with last year’s 16 percent, only 12 percent of high-school seniors had used e-cigs in the last month.
On the other hand, the survey also notes that 23 percent of high-school seniors said they had used marijuana in the past month. No, pot smoke isn’t as deadly as tobacco fumes — but teen drug use still ought to be a public-health concern, too.
Plus the worries over e-cigs center on fears that they’re a gateway to smoking real cigarettes. Shouldn’t similar worries apply to pot?
Especially with more and more states legalizing marijuana, and not just medical MJ. Massachusetts just became the latest to OK recreational pot.
The new law lets adults over 21 have up to 10 ounces inside their homes (plus the ability to grow up to a dozen marijuana plants per household) and an ounce of pot on their person outside of the home. Anyone think that won’t make it easier for the under-21 crowd to toke up?
If the nanny-staters want to go after all forms of smoking, they’d better not neglect all the weed that’s sprouting up.