‘Everyone’s Not Doing It’ is the message which the Partners for Prevention in Allegany County (PPAC) will be trying to get across to teens during National Drug & Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW).
The annual observance, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes on Health (NIH), runs through Sunday, March 26, and is designed to provide facts and negate disinformation about drug and alcohol use and abuse.
Although teens often feel pressured to try cannabis, vaping and alcohol by peers and others, eight-out-of-ten high school seniors, based on a 2021 Allegany County risks survey, hadn’t smoked marijuana in the past 30 days, according to PPAC.
With recreational cannabis now legal in New York state, the county group says, “it is important to let the young people in your life know about your disapproval of them using, and have the conversation with them that vaping THC or ingesting edibles or drinks infused with THC is not a safe way to consume THC.”
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that marijuana use might have “permanent effects on the developing brain when use begins in adolescence, especially with regular or heavy use.”
PPAC says that “most young people who started vaping did not plan on becoming addicted and most want to quit.
However, it notes, “Young people who vape are not just dealing with nicotine addiction, but also flavors have been proven to make quitting harder to accomplish.
It reports that recent studies have shown that young people who vape have the same biomarkers as adults who smoke cigarettes, with young people who vape being seven times more likely to start smoking cigarettes withing one year of starting to vape compared to their non-vaping peers.
An NIH report on marijuana addiction is available at http://bit.ly/3YXYJLj, with a resources list on various types of substance abuse, including cannabis, vaping and alcohol, along with their relationship to mental health, is available from Talk It Over at http://bit.ly/3Jx4CJE.
A copy of the summary of the 2021 Youth Risk and Protective Factor Survey for Allegany County schools is available at https://bit.ly/40dIBqk.
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Allegany Hope, as part of its focus on Building Health Communities Through Healthy FamiliesTM is a participant in Partners for Prevention in Allegany County (PPAC).