Study: Why Teen Pot Smoking Could be a Good Thing (And What We Can Learn From Teens Who Choose Weed Over Beer)

Associated risk is the danger or harm believed to be a consequence of drug use.  If associated risk for a particular substance goes up,  more people are reporting that they consider using that drug to be a threat. In other words, as associated risk goes down, more people are saying the drug in question is not that bad. According to the NIDA study, a decline in marijuana's associated risk contributed to teens smoking more pot, while drinking less alcohol and smoking fewer cigarrettes. Thus, many teens actually showed good judgement, by using available information to determine the danger posed by particular substances, and making smart decisions accordingly.

According to the study, about 25% of teens surveyed said they tried marijuana at least once last year, a statistically significant rise of about 4% since 2007. Additionally, 6.6% of 12th graders  also admitted to smoking weed daily.  

Frequent marijuana use is the highest it has been since 1981, but cigarette and alcohol use also reached historic lows.  11.7 percent of U.S. teens reported having smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, compared to 12.8 percent in 2010. According to the report, a twenty-year gradual decline in  alcohol use continued into 2011, and the decrease in that year alone was also significant:

These findings are important, as alcohol and cigarettes are more deadly and addictive than pot. The report acknowledged that decreases in associated risk may play a factor in the increases in marijuana use. The decline in teens’ perception of marijuana’s harmfulness could be linked to public discussion of  medical marijuana dispensaries and the ongoing debate about the medical benefits of marijuana. Thus, the study's own data proves what NIDA and other drug war institutions incessantly deny: Knowledge -- even if it shows the benefits of a drug -- matters. Give young people accurate information, and they will use it to make better decisions that result in less harm to themselves, because teens, like everybody else, do not actually want to get hurt or become addicts.

This is the importance of harm reduction education. Understanding the varying addictive nature and likelihood of overdose or impurity of different drugs will help teens to make smarter decisions when they begin to experiment. Giving students honest information about drugs, like appropriate dosage, and providing information about safe injection (or other methods of use),  does not necessarily insure that they will use drugs. It does, however, increase the odds that they will use drugs safely, and reduce the likelihood of experiencing the harms associated with drugs. But to win the trust of young people so that they take this information seriously, educators must also be honest about the harm or risk associated with different drugs, and it's not one size fits all.