EXPERTS: TEEN USE OF POT ON THE RISE

LOS ANGELES - Fewer teens drink and smoke cigarettes than in any time
in the past 30 years, but the widespread availability of medical
marijuana appears to be fueling a rise in pot use, health experts
said Wednesday.

One in four of the 47,000 teens surveyed for the 2011 Monitoring the
Future report said they had used marijuana at some point during the
past year, up from 21.4 percent in 2007. The survey, which polled
students nationwide in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades, also found
that one in 15 of the oldest students used pot on a daily or
near-daily basis - the highest rate since 1981.

For the first time, researchers asked 12th-grade students about
synthetic marijuana, which contains cannabinoids and produces a high
similar to pot but is thought to be more dangerous because it can be
contaminated with unknown substances. The finding - 11 percent of all
high school seniors had tried the substance - surprised researchers.

Sold by the names Spice or K2, the drug has been widely available
online and in tobacco shops until recently. In February, the Drug
Enforcement Administration reclassified some of the chemicals found
in the products as Schedule I controlled substances, which made them illegal.

The survey also revealed that teens don't think of marijuana as
dangerous. Because of that, "we can predict that use of marijuana is
going to increase," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse?, which funds the annual study.

That pot has become more widely used as more states legalize the use
of medical marijuana legalization cannot be ignored, said R. Gil
Kerlikowske?, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

"We know that any substance that is legally available is more widely
used," he said.

The rise of marijuana is largely responsible for an overall increase
in youth drug use over the past four years, said study leader Lloyd
D. Johnston of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social
Research, which conducts the annual survey. When marijuana is taken
out of the equation, the proportion of teens reporting they had used
any illicit drug declined through the first half of the 2000s and has
been stable over the past three years.

Since 1991, the proportion of eighth-grade students who said they
used alcohol within the past 30 days has declined by half, to 13
percent, the survey found. Rates have also fallen in older students,
with binge drinking among seniors dropping from 41 percent in 1981 to
22 percent this year. Still, about 40 percent of high school seniors
say they have used alcohol within the past 30 days.

Cigarette use fell in all three age groups, which was reassuring
because the 2010 survey hinted that the decades-long decline in
smoking may have begun to reverse, Johnston said. In all three grades
combined, 11.7 percent of youths said they smoked within the past 30
days, down from 12.8 percent in the 2010 survey.

Declines were also seen in the use of inhalants, crack cocaine, the
painkiller Vicodin, the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug
Adderall and over-the-counter cold and cough medicines.

Use of prescription drugs without medical supervision remains a
concern. In 2011, 22 percent of high school seniors said they had
misused at least one prescription drug, the same rate recorded in the
2007 survey.