Increased Cannabis Abuse and the Future of Alcohol

Does increased cannabis abuse have implications for future alcohol consumption?

There was a time when alcohol was the substance of choice for misuse and abuse among American youth. Interestingly, the last time that was the case, according to a new study out of the Oregon Health and Science University, was in the year 2,000. Today, according to that study, Cannabis is the most misused and abused substance among American youth.

The way my brain works has me wondering what this means in general and what this means for the future of alcohol use in the future.

FIRST THE STUDY
The study’s title tells us exactly what is being studied: “Trends in intentional abuse and misuse ingestions in school-aged children and adolescents reported to US poison centers from 2000-2020.” But what’s key to understanding the results is the data being used to address the issue at hand. The data about misuse and abuse of substances comes from reports to the National Poison Data System. You know this system better as the “National Poison Control Hotline” where calls come in from the public and medical/emergency professionals when they encounter some form of poisoning.

Put another way, the calls to the poison hotline that contributed to this 20-year study did not result from some teenagers downing a few beers before the Friday night high school football game. They resulted from one of those teens downing a six-pack of Bud along with 10 shots of vodka over the course of a single hour and their friends or parents discovering they could not say their names. Alternatively, the data didn’t result from kids taking a few hits of weed before heading in to watch the latest installment of the Avengers, but rather some newbie marijuana users getting their hands on some 28% THC product and ingesting so much they couldn’t lift their hand high enough to reach the Doritos bag.