Pubdate: Sat, 03 Sep 2016
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.

CDC FINDS MARIJUANA USE UP AMONG ADULTS

Smoking weed is often seen as an indulgence reserved for the young 
and the reckless: kids get high, in the popular imagination, but by 
and large their parents don't.

But new federal data show a stunning reversal of that age-old 
stereotype. Middle-aged Americans are now slightly more likely to use 
marijuana than their teenage children.

The research, released this week by the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention, found that only 7.4 percent of Americans ages 12 to 
17 years old smoked marijuana regularly in 2014, a 10 percent decline 
since 2002. But 8 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds used marijuana 
regularly in 2014, surpassing use among teens for the first time 
since at least 2002. (Survey data prior to that year aren't directly 
comparable, as the methodology changed.)

And it's not just middle-aged folks who are indulging more often. 
Since 2002, regular marijuana use among Americans age 45 to 54 has 
jumped by nearly 50 percent. Among those ages 55 to 64, it's jumped 
by a whopping 455 percent.

And among seniors, age 65 and older, monthly marijuana use is up 333 
percent since 2002.

There are several factors that could explain rising marijuana use 
rates among the middle-age-and-up crowd. The first is the growing 
prevalence of medical marijuana, which is now allowed in 25 states 
and Washington, D.C.

Another explanation: Aging boomers seem to be taking advantage of 
loosening restrictions on marijuana use to relive some of the 
indulgences of their youth.

National survey data bears this out: the boomer generation were big 
supporters of legalization in the 1970s. But as they settled down in 
the 1980s, their support for legalization plummeted. It began to 
rebound in the 1990s, and as of 2013, half of boomers supported legalization.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom