Is JoinTogether Becoming the Fox News of AOD Prevention?
I have been reading about
latest Monitoring the Future 2012 report regarding AOD use by 8th,
10th, and 12th grade high school students from various
sources this morning (easily available “all over the web,” but here is the link
to the MTF webpage with related info - http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/). Please look at this headline below from JoinTogether,
which is at CASA at Columbia and associate with the Partnership for a Drug Free
America and compare this to other announcements regarding the report. As you
compare, ask yourself: Is JoinTogether becoming the FoxNews of the AOD
prevention field?
|
Survey: Almost One-Fourth of 12th Graders Have
Smoked Marijuana in Past Month
|
December
19, 2012
|
 |
|
|
||||||||
Where most reports on the
MTF 2012 findings are meant to suggest the glass is half full, it would appear that
JoinTogether saw the glass as half empty…
What do you think?
Dr. Robert
Their reporting does misrepresent the bigger picture. This from the MTF press release today on marijuana:
ReplyDeleteAfter four straight years of increasing use among teens, annual marijuana use showed no further increase in any of the three grades surveyed in 2012. The 2012 annual prevalence rates (i.e., percent using in the prior 12 months) were 11%, 28%, and 36% for 8th,
10th, and 12th graders, respectively. (Among the 8th graders there was a modest decline across the past two years—from 13.7% in 2010 to 11.4% in 2012—that reached statistical significance.)
“Whether this is more than a pause in the ongoing increase that we have seen in teen marijuana use in recent years is unclear at this point,” said Lloyd Johnston, the study’s principal investigator. “One important variable that has been a lead indicator of use—namely the amount of risk teenagers perceived to be associated with marijuana use—continued its sharp decline in 2012 among teens, which would suggest further increases in use in the future.” Reported availability of marijuana had been falling for some years, but it leveled out about four or five years ago.