One in 10 high school students have used dangerous ‘diet weed’ linked to thousands of poisonings, NIH report suggests

More than one in 10 high school students use delta-8 THC, a sibling of the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, an initial analysis shows.

Delta-8, sometimes called “diet weed” because it promises a high without the anxiety, has become extremely popular among young people who don’t have to show age verification to buy it.

Of the 12th graders who used Delta-8, 91 percent also reported using marijuana, according to the NIH-funded study.

Researchers now consider the proliferation of delta-8 products a “public health problem,” with lead author Adam Leventhal saying he and fellow researchers “just didn’t expect it to be this high.”

Delta-8 is cheap and easy to obtain. Falling prices for the drug appear to coincide with its growing popularity as a “safer” alternative to marijuana

Diet marijuana has not been extensively studied and its effects on the teenage brain are not well understood.

But it has led to thousands of annual poisonings, blowing holes in the argument that delta-8 is a safer alternative to marijuana.

Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, with support from the NIH, have conducted the first analysis of teen use of delta-8.

The data reflects use among high school students in 2023, collected as part of the national Monitoring the Future survey, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

About 11 percent of twelfth-grade students—one or two in each classroom of an average American high school—admitted to using the drug.

Because this analysis is the first to examine delta-8 use, researchers were unable to determine whether it was higher than in previous years. However, there are strong indications that use among young people is increasing.

Calls to poison control centers in the US related to Delta-8 jumped by 82 percent from 2021 to 2022, accounting for more than 2,300 calls. More than 40 percent of these calls concerned children.

Dr. Leventhal told it NBC News: ‘We know that high school students naturally want to discover and try new “exciting” things, such as e-cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana.

“It’s not surprising that we see them using delta-8.”

The substance, which often comes in vapor form in technicolor packaging to attract young people – the same strategy used by e-cigarette makers – is extremely easy to obtain thanks to a lack of regulation.

Last year, researchers at Hofstra University found that more than half of 45 Delta-8 retail websites sold their products in child-friendly packaging.

Dr. Alyssa Harlow, lead author and professor of public health at the University of Southern California, said: “Delta-8 products are available where teens can easily find and purchase them, and there should be continued monitoring of their use, as well as public health efforts to protect youth and to help parents stay informed and safe.”

The short- and long-term effects on brain development have not yet been fully investigated.

Delta-8 products are often packaged in such a way that they stand out and look as innocuous as candy

Delta-8 comes from the hemp plant and is chemically very similar to delta-9 THC in cannabis, except that it binds less strongly to cannabinoid receptors in the brain than delta-9. This explains why it is less psychoactive than delta-9 THC.

It is also believed to cause less paranoia and anxiety than marijuana, which increases its appeal.

Although it hasn’t been studied as extensively, researchers believe it has similar effects on the developing brain as marijuana, which can lead to poor academic performance, problems with thinking and problem solving, and even addiction.

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego found earlier this year that adolescents aged 13 to 14 who had used cannabis in the past year had worse memory than those who had never used the drug.

Similarly, researchers at the University of Vermont scanned the brains of teenagers from England, Ireland, France and Germany to study the effects of marijuana.

They concluded that 14-year-old girls and boys exposed to THC – the psychoactive chemical in cannabis – had increased volume of gray matter – tissue responsible for muscle control, sensory perception such as vision and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision. making and self-control – in their brains.

Their findings indicated that young people’s use of marijuana disrupted their brain development.

The study, published in the journal JAMAhas its limitations.

Only high school-age seniors enrolled in school were taken into account, and those who are homeschooled or not currently enrolled in school were not taken into account. Students who were absent on the day of the survey were also not taken into account.