Parents are puff, puff, passing!
While fewer moms and dads are smoking cigarettes than ever before, their cannabis use rose from 11 percent in 2002 to 17 percent in 2015, according to new research out of Columbia University.
Furthermore, cannabis use among parents with kids at home rose from 5 percent in 2002 to 7 percent in 2015.
Both findings are based on data from the National Survey and Drug Use and Health.
Researchers worry that weed’s surging popularity will put kids at risk for secondhand-smoke exposure (as would be the case with conventional cigarettes). While more research needs to be done on the effects of secondhand smoke from cannabis use, a 2016 study by the American Heart Association involving rats found that one minute of secondhand marijuana smoke impairs vascular functions for up to 90 minutes.
“[T]he increase in cannabis use may be compromising progress in curbing exposure to secondhand smoke,” Renee Goodwin, Ph.D., a psychiatric epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, writes in a press release.
The study numbers don’t specify the location of parents’ smoking or how far they are from their kids when they light up. But because smoking weed is mostly illegal in public spaces, Goodwin thinks that cannabis use is likely to happen inside the home.
She hopes that parents will start taking the risks of secondhand marijuana smoke seriously.
“Educating parents about secondhand cannabis-smoke exposure should be integrated into public health-education programs on secondhand-smoke exposure.”
Credit: nypost.com
