Adam Leventhal

There's concern that the adolescent brain may be more vulnerable to the addictive effects of nicotine, the circuits underlying pleasure and the pursuit of novel, enjoyable experiences develop much faster than the circuits that promote decision making, impulse control and rational thinking.

We found that cannabis use was highly prevalent, but what was interesting and new was that the majority of youth who had used cannabis in one form had not only used just one type of cannabis, but they used two or more different types of cannabis products.

While use of the traditional smoked form of cannabis was still the most popular form, we did find a sizable portion of teens who had never smoked cannabis, but did report using edibles or vaporized.

We hope our study raises awareness of people who are concerned about the health of teens that these products exist, that they are commonly used, and it would be worth opening up a line of dialogue between teens and teachers and parents about these products.

We believe we are studying the occurrence of new symptoms that weren’t present at the beginning of the study.

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ADHD's been linked with substance use disorders during adulthood and even involvement in the criminal justice system, and the symptoms are distressing for the person affected, if we can identify any potential risk factor that is implicated in this disorder then that's important, especially ones that are modifiable like digital media use.

Those percentages -- like the 4.6 % -- reflect the average rates across the four different follow-ups, so one of the things we noticed in the study was that the association between digital media and prevalence of ADHD symptoms was persistent across the entire follow-up period.

If we can determine if there is a potential causal link that is consistent across studies, then we can design interventions to curb media exposure. Even simple educational information to let teachers, parents, and pediatric health professionals know that there could be an increased risk when they talk with their teens about digital media use might be helpful.

We didn't have clinicians involved in our study to actually provi... by Adam Leventhal

We didn't have clinicians involved in our study to actually provide a diagnosis.

In addition to the health hazards of vaping nicotine, other forms of nicotine ingestion like swallowing can be deadly, the high concentration of nicotine in some e-liquids if swallowed or absorbed into the body through other means is toxic, especially for infants and toddlers, who may be the siblings of older children who might be purchasing e-liquids and not aware of such hazards.

We are seeing an evolution in the culture and pattern of trends in youth tobacco product and marijuana use in several regions of the country, which makes the landscape for parents, teachers and school administrators quite different today than in prior years.

Vaping – whether it’s solutions with nicotine, marijuana preparations, or just drug-free solutions – is easy for teens to conceal because the devices can be set to release non-visible vapor and the smell of such vapors is much less odorous than tobacco or marijuana smoking.