When I read the following, it took me back to my high school days (1968-1972) while comparing this to my current experience as a high school teacher.
“First, high schoolers are smoking less and less cigarettes. Only 10.3% have reportedly smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days, down from 27.4% in 2000. And second, the gap between marijuana and cigarette usage is widening. Until 2008, cigarettes were the preferred option, but now weed is clearly the go-to for those in high-school.”
I went to a small school in western NY state, and no one had access to marijuana. A few “hoods” smoked cigarettes in the boy’s room, while about a third of us smoked cigarettes outside of school. (I stopped smoking when I started my 3rd year at the USAF Academy.)
Today, I never smell tobacco smoke in the boy’s room, but every now and the someone has been smoking weed in there. I don’t support the idea of high school students smoking weed (trying not to be preachy, but they have enough on their plates as it is). However, it’s good to see they’re not smoking as many cigarettes.
Ecigs. Thats why you dont smell them. According to my highschool daughter tons of kids smoke them. Its super easy to hide and a lot even do it in the classroom without getting caught
My dad started smoking regularly when he ws 14 in the 50’s (he was a “hood” in south Chicago. Fortunately he quit about 30 years ago. I never really started (I would smoke at parties and for new babies) my grandmother chain smoked until her death at 91. My daughter complains if she smells smoke, where I worked in smoky restaurants and bars as a teenager.
Cigarette sales in other countries like China are going up. I guess they are going to have to go though the same cycle.
In the high school I work in weed seems to be very popular. It doesn’t appear that many smoke cigs but some definitely do. I don’t know how popular ecigs are but someone just got caught ecigging (whatever you call it) in school so I know they’re around.
I also don’t know what the appeal of starting with ecigs would be. I can see regular cigarettes being cool, but what’s the rush with a blast of vaporized nicotine?
The appeals of ecigs are, technology looks cool, they are customizable which increases coolness, They taste like candy, because adults dont want you to, super easy to hide.
“I went to a small school in western NY state, and no one had access to marijuana”
Maybe nobody you knew had access but there was tons of it available back then, at least were I went to h.s - on a NATO military base in Germany and my last year in Ottawa. Surprising there was weed on a military base but a lot of American service men were toking during the Viet Nam draft era. Easy to find weed in Ottawa also in h.s.
I’ll add that a lot of h.s. kids smoked cigarettes in those days also because it was considered cool and grown up. Every movie star had a cigarette in their mouth so you were considered a bit square if you didn’t. I remember finishing soccer or volleyball team practice and the first thing we’d all do is light up a smoke. I smoked cigarettes from age 15 to 20 before giving them up.
“I went to a small school in western NY state, and no one had access to marijuana”
Maybe nobody you knew had access but there was tons of it available back then
This. It was there, he just didn’t know it.
I guess you had to be there. Late 60’s/early 70’s, in a “Southern Tier” town with a population of 1000, and a school with a bunch of farm boys and farm girls. It was 60 miles to Rochester on a two lane highway. None of us had our own cars (we’d have to borrow “dad’s car” when we’d go on a date), we didn’t have much money, and driving somewhere to buy weed was a major expedition. So we smoked cigarettes to be cool and drank PBR, Boone’s Farm, MD 20/20, and orange flavored vodka to get buzzed.
Good news for the tobacco industry: China. People smoke there like people did in the USA decades ago. While we aren’t smoking as much, others are picking up the slack and ensuring the tobacco industry thrives!
**I grew up in NC, tobacco capital of the world. **
HS in Northern IL early 80’s.
We had a smoking area in our high school.
Us too, it was “D” door. It struck me as entirely odd that it was illegal for these kids to be smoking as they were minors and not supposed to be in possession of cigarettes yet the school district set aside a specific area for them to smoke.
Weed was certainly there in the 70’s.
We pretty much had everything we had today but maybe not with as much veracity. Pot, various pills, cocaine, heroin etc.
I guess you had to be there. Late 60’s/early 70’s, in a “Southern Tier” town with a population of 1000
Can’t imagine 5-10 years would make that huge of a difference. My brothers went to HS in a southern town, population ~3K, we lived on a farm…they did have their own cars though, in the late 70’s. They definitely had pot. My guess is that it was mostly ditch weed but they still smoked it.
High school? I have three siblings who were full blown drug addicts in junior high, two marijuana and one meth. Thankfully all three have now moved on to just being alcoholics, only one still smokes.
Today, I never smell tobacco smoke in the boy’s room, but every now and the someone has been smoking weed in there.
3 thoughts on this:
-The cost of tobacco cigarettes is much higher today, comparatively speaking. Plus, the coolness factor has gone way down.
-The coolness factor of weed is growing, especially since its prevalence in the media (Rx legality, Colorado, raids, struggle as to whether or not the feds should allow it to be legalized as a source of tax income). Tobacco doesn’t make the news as much as weed, making the exposure to weed greater.
-I get the feeling that weed smoking is not as chronic as tobacco use was/ is. Cigarette smokers hit 10-30 cigarettes in a day, lighting up at least once an hour. I doubt that the weeders have similar habits, making the ability to avoid using in publicly prohibited places easier.
I get the sense that the mj industry is on the rise while the tobacco industry is on the decline. I also get the sense that the cycle of acceptability is starting over with it ending at some point in the future when health risks are better understood (which I’m assuming that it’ll be replaced by the next cool thing to start the cycle over).
Oops, I should have made this clear. The “Southern Tier” is the part of western NY state along the northern border of PA. Sort of Appalachia without the coal mines. Not the most prosperous part of the country and always a little behind the times.
Things did change in the US between 1972 to 1976. (The years I graduated from HS and college). In 1969, only 8% of Americans under 29 years old admitted to having tried marijuana. By 1973 the figure had increased to 35% and it peaked at 56% in 1977. (The figure decreased to 36% in 2013).
Lots of things changed. In 1970, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was considered remarkable because it’s main character was a single woman who’d never been married and she was working to make a career for herself. Watergate and Nixon’s resignation in 1974. The end of US involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973 and the fall of Saigon in 1975. First Lady Betty Ford expressing liberal views about marijuana use on 60 Minutes in 1975. In 1969, a song like Okie From Muskogee could make it into the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By 1977, we had Burt Reynolds smoking a joint in Smokey and the Bandit. Cheech & Chong got started in 1971.
“I went to a small school in western NY state, and no one had access to marijuana”
Maybe nobody you knew had access but there was tons of it available back then
This. It was there, he just didn’t know it.
Yes because Germany and Ottawa set the standard for the world. Canada and Europe had tons while a small down in NY may not have? I am sure you can’t grasp that one. Maybe the weed is to blame for your laundry list of issues and you would have been better off in his town.
Ecigs. Thats why you dont smell them. According to my highschool daughter tons of kids smoke them. Its super easy to hide and a lot even do it in the classroom without getting caught
"Yes because Germany and Ottawa set the standard for the world. Canada and Europe had tons while a small down in NY may not have? I am sure you can’t grasp that one. Maybe the weed is to blame for your laundry list of issues and you would have been better off in his town. "
Were you even born then?
I can tell you weed was every where in the late 60’s and early 70’s if you actually wanted to find it. And that includes any rural hick town outside the Bible Belt. It was there, he just wasn’t aware of it because he probably wasn’t interested in finding it…
Most of the weed in Germany at that time was being sold by American G.I.'s. They’d usually get it from suppliers in Amsterdam and bring it back to the NATO bases. Realize this was the drug culture anti Viet Nam era when 80% of the draftees in the US military didn’t want to be there in the first place and didn’t give a fuck. High school kids knew which guys would sell to them. It wasn’t like weed was a big thing however, since there was no real drinking age in Germany most of us usually just drank beer. But weed was available. I tried it the first time at age 17 and got it from an American GI we knew. Realize he would only be a two or three years older than we were.
Ottawa is an interesting story. The federal government wanted to do scientific research and had an area called the “experimental farm” where they grew a number of crops for research including weed. The “farm” was in a suburban area and was surrounded by an eight foot tall chain link fence. that kids would regularly climb and pick some plants. Eventually the fed figured out what was going on and beefed up security. A couple of the high school pushers I knew later became cops. Go figure.
I know this all sounds a bit strange, but it was the late 60’s/early 70’s. You had to be there to understand it.