An issue we hear a lot about from parents are their teen’s choice of friends. Our counselor Eleni talks about ways to talk to your teens about the choices they are making.

One of the most pressing concerns for many of us is managing daily life with our families under these unusual and trying circumstances around COVID-19. For those of us with preteens, teens or young adults in the home, our best-laid plans for supporting their healthy development can be thrown off course or strengthened during this time.

Two studies released in March point to bad news for the use of marijuana, especially for teens.

Marijuana is also commonly used by adolescents, second only to alcohol. In 2017, approximately 9.2 million youth aged 12 to 25 reported marijuana use in the past month and 29% more young adults aged 18-25 started using marijuana.

This morning we became aware of the newest way to conceal vaping…the hoodie vaping sweatshirt! As you can see from the above picture the vaping device is concealed with the shirt and one uses it by engaging with the drawstrings.

Parents, 55.8% of teens say they believe the most common reason people their age choose not to drink or use drugs is their parents. This is either because they think their parents would disapprove or because they don’t want to get in trouble with their parents.

A recent New York Times opinion piece made the argument that the legal age for being able to use marijuana should be age 25. The issue of how extraordinarily more potent current marijuana is than it was before, is a significant contributing factor.

A new study from Johns Hopkins University compared infrequent cannabis users comparing those using a vaping device and those that smoked it. The study found vaping increased the rate of short-term anxiety, paranoia, memory loss and distraction.