DENVER, Co. (KDVR)– A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights what behaviors teens are likely to get involved in, legal or not.
The 15,000 person survey asks American teenagers a variety of questions about substances like tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.
“CDC’s YRBS System is the only surveillance system designed to monitor a wide range of priority health risk behaviors among representative samples of high school students at the national, state, and local levels,” according to the CDC’s official website for the study.
Among the results found, regular marijuana use among teens is now higher than that of cigarettes. The study found 18.1-percent of high school students nationwide had smoked cigarettes on at least one day during the thirty days before the survey.
In the same study, 23.1-percent of teens reported smoking marijuana one or more times during the thirty days before the survey.
“By similarly regulating marijuana behind a counter, strictly regulating it, and restricting it sales to minors, teen use would probably go down for marijuana,” said Betty Aldworth, a Denver based marijuana legalization advocate.
Colorado voters will head to the polls in November to decide whether or not to legalize marijuana use the same way alcohol use is regulated across the state.
Click here to read the ballot initiative: http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/s/regulate-marijuana-alcohol-act-2012
The CDC study reported use of marijuana among teens has jumped from 14.7% in the early 1990s to over 23.1% in 2011.
Click here to read the report for yourself: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6104.pdf