According to recent study, Irish youths who have friends who use cannabis are ten times more likely to take the substance themselves, reports Breaking News.
Researchers discovered that 7.3% of students between the ages of 15 and 16 reported using cannabis in the past 30 days, with no discernible difference in drug usage between boys and girls.
Additionally, research demonstrated that teens who believed that using cannabis was required to blend in with their peers were nearly twice as likely to do so as those who did not experience peer pressure to use the substance, reports Breaking News.
Students who felt their parents were vehemently opposed cannabis use were nearly four times less likely to be current users than those who thought their parents would be indifferent about their usage.
The results are based on answers to a questionnaire given to more than 4,400 fourth and fifth year students as part of the Planet Youth survey, which was conducted in late 2021, reports Breaking News.
Forty schools in Cavan, Monaghan, and north Dublin were home to the responders.
According to the study, current cannabis users in this age bracket were far more likely to also smoke, drink alcohol, or vape, reports Breaking News.
It also shows that the likelihood of current cannabis usage was substantially greater when parental monitoring was minimal.
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The purpose of the study, according to its authors, whose results have been published in the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, was to investigate peer, school, community, familial, and individual factors related to cannabis use among Irish adolescents in order to develop prevention and early intervention strategies.
They asserted that drug prevention techniques might potentially alter a number of the risk variables found by the study, reports Breaking News.
The researchers pointed out that previous study had shown that prolonged cannabis use can worsen mental health conditions including psychosis and increase the risk of addiction, with one in three frequent teenage users developing an addiction to the substance.
According to the report, the Republic’s cannabis-related psychiatric hospitalisation rate for those aged 15 to 34 increased by 140% between 2011 and 2017 and has stayed high ever since, reports Breaking News.
According to the study, teenagers still use cannabis for a variety of reasons, such as greater hunger, improved sleep, better social possibilities, and boredom alleviation, even though there is evidence that cannabis usage is linked to higher health risks.
Family issues, insecurity, and low self-esteem are examples of other variables, reports Breaking News.
When asked to rate their personal mental health, nearly three-quarters of the teens who do not use cannabis (72.4%) said it was good or OK, while 54.6% of those who do said it was okay.
However, compared to 27.1% of those who do not use cannabis, 45.0% of cannabis users rated their mental health as poor or extremely poor, reports Breaking News.
Similarly, 67.2 percent of non-users polled thought cannabis may have a detrimental effect on their health, compared to only 16.6 percent of users who thought the substance was dangerous.
Compared to 29.3% of students who do not use cannabis, 90.4% of cannabis users said that their peers also use the substance, reports Breaking News.
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