If a teenager with no knowledge of his drinking limits gets way too wasted, he or she becomes a danger to himself and everybody around him. But if a teenager gets way too blazed, all that’s going to happen is he or she is going to be glued to the couch all night watching episodes of Bill Nye The Science Guy. So it has never made too much sense to me as to why most parents would prefer their kids drinking tons of booze than sparking up, besides the undeserved stigma that weed gets for being illegal.
According to a new report by Project Know, American teenagers are more likely to smoke pot than binge drink. Maybe the legality in states like Washington and Colorado has negated the anti-weed bias. Or maybe kids these days would just rather smoke a joint and then search for Pokémon than down a bunch of Busch Lights at a party and try to get lucky.
According to the report, these are the five jurisdictions (which is basically a fancy way of reminding you that D.C. is not a state) with the highest percentages of high school students who reported smoking marijuana in the past 30 days:
- D.C., 32.2 percent
- New Mexico, 27.8 percent
- Washington, 26.7 percent
- Connecticut, 26 percent
- Vermont 25.7 percent
And these are the five jurisdictions with the highest percentages of high school students who reported binge drinking in the past 30 days:
- West Virginia, 24.4 percent
- Montana, 23.5 percent
- New Jersey, 23 percent
- Iowa, 23 percent
- Arkansas 22.9 percent
(ProjectKnow)
As you can see, the middle of the country is still more booze-heavy among teenagers whereas coastal states tend to be more 420-friendly.
