More Indiana students use marijuana
Overall drug use among Indiana’s schoolchildren has declined, but marijuana use is up slightly.
A survey to be released today finds that the biggest bump was in marijuana use among 10th-graders.
In 2008, 13.5 percent of sophomores interviewed reported they had smoked marijuana in the previous month. This year: 14.6 percent said they had.
Marijuana use can affect the ability to learn and remember information. “The more a student uses marijuana, the more likely it can affect school performance,” said Ruth Gassman, director of Indiana University’s Indiana Prevention Resource Center.
Gassman said the rise in marijuana use is “something we need to pay attention to,” but “a one-year hike does not mean a trend for increasing usage.”
The interviews were conducted in the spring by the Indiana Prevention Resource Center. The research was funded by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.
The increases ranged from 0.5 percent to 1.2 percent, but marijuana usage remains below its levels of a decade ago.
In the peak year of 1996, the IPRC study found that 25 percent of high school seniors reported using marijuana, compared with 17 percent this year.
Jamie Guilfoy, a narcotics detective with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, says the uptick in marijuana use among youths reflects the pattern of the greater population of drug users.
“Marijuana is being used a little more” among all populations, Guilfoy said.
He said the drug’s potency varies but is no different from that of recent years.
The study found that the use of psychedelic drugs, cocaine, crack, inhalants and amphetamines decreased. Alcohol and methamphetamine use held steady or declined.
Survey respondents included 182,000 students in 556 public and private schools.
Call Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043.
September 9, 2009
