Cannabis has a reputation for making its users relaxed to the point of incapacitation.
But it turns out that teens who ‘vape’ the herb face a ‘significantly higher risk’ of falling into a life of crime and delinquency.
In the olden days, potheads were forced to roll monster spliffs, load up a bong or bake some space cakes to get stoned.
Now they can use tiny vaporizer devices to blast their brains with cannabis without generating the clouds of smelly smoke generated by traditional methods of marijuana ingestion.
A team from the University of Texas has just published a piece of research exploring ‘adolescent vaping and its association with delinquency among 8th and 10th-grade students across the nation’.
The research examined the use of vaporizers to take tobacco as well as weed.
Criminal justice professor Dylan Jackson said: ‘Our hope is that this research will lead to the recognition among policymakers, practitioners, and parents that the growing trend of adolescent vaping is not simply “unhealthy” – or worse, an innocuous pastime – but that it may, in fact, be a red flag or an early marker of risk pertaining to violence, property offending, and other acts of misconduct.’
Jackson’s research suggested that youngsters who vape are more likely to engage in violent crime, join a gang, vandalise school property, bring a weapon into the classroom or run away from home.
In a statement, the university wrote: ‘These findings might be explained by the ability to conceal an illegal substance through the mechanism of vaping, which can reduce the likelihood of detection and apprehension among youth who vape illicit substances and thereby embolden them to engage other delinquent behaviours.
‘Youth who vape illicit substances such as marijuana may easily go unnoticed and/or unchallenged due to the ambiguity surrounding the substance they are vaping and the ease of concealability of vaping devices, which can look like a flash drive.’
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