Entries by National Families in Action

COVID-19 Diagnoses 5 Times More Likely Among Youth Who Ever Vaped

7 times more likely among youth who ever vaped and ever smoked cigarettes. Shivani Mathur Gaiha, Jing Cheng, and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher wanted to know if cigarette use and/or e-cigarette use had an impact on COVID-19 symptoms, testing, and diagnosis. An online survey of 4,351 young people ages 13 to 24 was conducted in May 2020. […]

CALIFORNIA: Prenatal Marijuana Use By Pregnant Women Up 25% During COVID

Kaiser Permanente Northern California researchers studied 100,005 pregnancy records of 95,412 women before and during the COVID pandemic. They found that prenatal marijuana use increased 25 percent (from 6.75 percent to 8.14 percent) during the pandemic. Rates of Prenatal Cannabis Use Among Pregnant Women Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Kelly C. Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH1; G. Thomas Ray, MBA1; Stacey E. Alexeeff, PhD1; et […]

Marijuana And Other Drugs Can Kill Babies In First Year Of Life

Drug-related deaths among US infants For the first time, researchers find that during the first year of life, even infants can die from exposure to addictive drugs, either directly or indirectly. They defined “drug-involved deaths” as those deaths due to underlying or contributing causes. Drugs most frequently mentioned on death certificates included methamphetamine, opioids, opioid […]

Understanding How Much Big Tobacco Is Driving Nicotine & Marijuana Vaping

Not only does Big Tobacco continue to find ways to lure children into buying new nicotine products, it is moving in on the marijuana industry to scale pot sales up to or beyond the level of diminishing tobacco sales. Most people are unaware of the growing relationship between marijuana and tobacco companies. But that doesn’t […]

Here are the states with the lowest levels of marijuana use among kids 12-17 years old

Last week, we reported that 3.2 million 12- to 17-year-olds used marijuana in the past year, according to the new 2018-2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Of those, 39 percent live in the 15 recreational legalization states and the District of Columbia, while 61 percent live in the other 35 states. We got […]

Marijuana vaping nearly triples among 12th graders in 2 years

Marijuana vaping nearly triples in two years among 12th graders Past-month marijuana vaping among high school seniors nearly tripled (from 5 percent to 14 percent) between 2017 and 2019, the new Monitoring the Future reveals. It nearly doubled in just one year (from 7.5 percent to 14 percent), the largest one-year jump of any drug […]

2,291 vaping-related lung injury cases in all 50 states, 2 US territories; 48 deaths in 25 states

These data as of December 3, 2019 were adjusted by removing 175 non-hospitalized cases from previously reported national cases. From this date forward, CDC will report only hospitalized cases but deaths regardless of hospitalization status. THC is present in most of the samples tested by FDA. While Vitamin E acetate is a chemical of concern, […]

Colorado kids and teens are dying at a rate higher than U.S. average – and suicide is to blame

Suicide is the leading cause of death in Colorado among children and young adults ages 10 to 24. This comes to light with the release of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2019 Kids Count Data Book, which compares children’s well-being across all 50 states. In 2017, the state’s teen suicide rate rose to 21 deaths […]

Twenty years after Columbine, Colorado schools are assessing an astonishing number of student threats

The Colorado Sun has conducted an investigation to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, which killed 13 students. The Sun’s investigation discovered a stunning increase in the number of school district threat assessments since then. In some districts the number is ten times higher. Suicide threat assessments follow the same trend. The public-school […]

STUDY: Using marijuana just once or twice may change teen’s brain structure

BREAKING . . . Grey matter volume differences associated with extremely low levels of cannabis use in adolescence A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience today “presents evidence suggesting structural brain and cognitive effects of just one or two instances of cannabis use in adolescence.” The researchers note that nearly 35 percent of 10th graders report […]

WARNING: CBD is everywhere, but scientists still don’t know much about it

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of roughly 100 chemicals contained in marijuana called cannabinoids, meaning they are unique to the cannabis plant (which contains several hundred more chemicals in addition to cannabinoids). Unlike THC, the psychoactive marijuana component primarily responsible for producing the “high,” CBD is not psychoactive. Manufacturers tout CBD as a magic bullet that […]

Cleveland Clinic Won’t Recommend Medical Marijuana to Patients

Why the Cleveland Clinic won’t recommend medical marijuana for patients  Doctors at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic will not recommend marijuana for medical use, according to Paul Terpeluk, DO, medical director of the clinic’s employee health services. Writing in the Kent (OH) Record-Courier, Dr. Terpeluk explains why. “In the world of healthcare, a medication is a drug that has […]

For Big Tobacco and Brewers, Grass is Greener

Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol are investing in pot to make Big Marijuana, the New York Times reports this morning. Altria, the tobacco company that makes Marlboro and other cigarettes, paid $1.8 billion last week to buy nearly half of Cronos Group, a Canadian marijuana company. Constellation Brands, the company that makes Corona and other beers, paid […]

Does Legalization Increase Marijuana Use?

The new 2016-2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health State Estimates is out this week. The below graphs illustrate a few of the findings from this annual survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Numbers in graphs are percentages. The graphs can be downloaded starting Thursday, December 6 here. National Families […]

For every dollar gained in tax revenue, Colorado taxpayers paid $4.50 to mitigate the effects of marijuana legalization

A comprehensive new report by the Centennial Institute analyzes what marijuana legalization costs Colorado taxpayers. A few highlights: The highest costs are connected to marijuana-related ER admissions, hospitalizations, and school dropouts. There is a connection between marijuana use and the use of alcohol and other drugs. Calls to Poison Control increased dramatically after legalization for […]