Study: California Teens Believe Alcohol, Cigarettes, and Nicotine Vapes More Harmful than Cannabis 

More California adolescents view alcohol, nicotine vapes, and cigarettes as more dangerous than cannabis, according to a study published last week in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal. The data comes from 160,222 adolescents who took the 2019–2020 California Student Tobacco Survey and 14,922 adolescents who took the 2024 California Youth Tobacco Survey. 

The survey found 92.6% of respondents believed daily cigarette smoking is harmful; 85.3% believed everyday nicotine vape use is harmful; and 77.7% believed everyday alcohol use is harmful. Comparatively, 66.8% of respondents said daily cannabis use is harmful.  

The researchers from the University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science note that “harm perceptions for each substance were lower for occasional use than for everyday use, and lower among those who had ever used the substance than among those who had never used it.”  

“Harm perceptions remained unchanged or increased with grade for cigarettes, vapes, and alcohol but decreased for cannabis,” the study states. “For each substance, harm perceptions declined as the proportion of participants’ friends who used the substance increased.”  

The authors conclude that as adolescents aged, they were less likely to perceive cannabis as harmful, unlike other substances included in the survey.