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A survey taken between December 2016 and January 2018 shows that adolescents who vape marijuana are more likely to wheeze and cough than those who smoke cigarettes or vape nicotine.
The federally funded Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study surveyed nearly 15,000 teens. It showed that vaping marijuana increased the risk of wheezing or whistling in the chest by 81 percent compared to a 15 percent increased risk from cigarettes and a 9 percent increased risk from nicotine e-cigarettes. Vaping marijuana also increased teens’ risk of:
- sleep disturbed by wheezing by 71 percent,
- speech limited due to wheezing by 96 percent,
- wheezing during or after exercise by 33 percent, and
- dry coughing at night by 26 percent.
These are all signs of significant injury to the lungs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 4 out of 5 patients with the serious lung disease called EVALI had vaped marijuana, versus only about 16 percent who said they were only vaping nicotine. Vitamin E acetate was found in the lung fluids of all EVALI patients.
The researchers in this study were surprised to learn that lifetime use of vaping marijuana was associated with a far greater number of symptoms and a higher likelihood of having each symptom, says lead researcher Carol Boyd. Professor Emerita Boyd is co-director of the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking, and Health.
Read Healthday article here
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Research has demonstrated an association between e-cigarette use (vaping) and initiation of combustible cigarette (tobacco) use among youth. This study used data from a US national sample (N=3426, age 15–27) to examine the magnitude of this association among youth with e-cigarette use from 2017 to 2019, when “pod mod” devices—which deliver high nicotine concentrations—had the largest share of the market.
- Compared with youth who had never had e-cigarette use, those who initiated it in 2018 were 7 times more likely to initiate combustible cigarette use in 2019 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 7.29), and 8 times more likely to have current combustible cigarette use (aOR, 8.26).
- Other predictors of combustible cigarette use included male gender, household tobacco use, and sensation seeking.
Comments: E-cigarette use during adolescence greatly increases the risk of later combustible cigarette use. The popularity of vaping is a concern because the vast majority of adults with combustible cigarette use initiated it in their teen years. While e-cigarettes were introduced to the marketplace as a solution to the public health problem of smoking, the popularity of “pod mod” devices among adolescents may result in these devices introducing a greater number people to smoking than the number of those they help to quit.
Sharon Levy, MD
Reference: Hair EC, Barton AA, Perks SN, et al. Association between e-cigarette use and future combustible cigarette use: evidence from a prospective cohort of youth and young adults, 2017–2019. Add Behav. 2021;112:106593.
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Many people who use cocaine and other drugs return to drug use even after prolonged abstinence. Resumption of drug use often is driven by drug-associated memories that are retrieved when the person is exposed to drug cues. The results of a recent study in rats suggest that some neuronal connections (i.e., synapses) that encode cocaine-associated memories are not static but weaken for approximately 6 hours after they are retrieved and that holding these synapses in their weakened state may reduce return to cocaine use.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2021/02/disrupting-cocaine-memories-prevents-return-cocaine-use-in-rats
(Dalgarno Institute Comment: It is important to note the ‘recalibrating’ of both brain and cellular memory is motivated by behavioural action, not chemical engagement - See also Humpty Dumpty Resiliency Ed. S. 6: Rebellion & Experimentation P2: From Thermometer to Thermostat (https://nobrainer.org.au/images/humpty-dumpty/RewardExploration_-_Part_Two.pdf )
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- Dating violence was nearly twice as likely if either partner drank alcohol.
- Women were nearly twice as apt to perpetrate dating violence when they used drugs.
- Men were 1.4 times more likely to perpetrate dating violence when they used drugs.
- Estimated blood alcohol level and binge drinking were related to dating violence.
Introduction: Although the association between substance use and dating violence is well-established in the research literature, there is limited research establishing the temporal co-occurrence of these variables. The primary objective was to examine the temporal relationship between alcohol and drug use and subsequent dating violence using a proximal effects model.
Conclusions: These results further support an association between substance use and partner aggression at daily and situational levels of analysis, extending prior clinical findings to a college dating sample. Taken with previous research findings, our results suggest the need for college sexual assault and dating violence prevention programs to target reductions in substance use.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853220301243
