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School students think smoking weed is better than cigarettes

<h3>Do you agree with them&quest; They think their parents would&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<h2>Smoking cigarettes is worse teenage behaviour than smoking marijuana&comma; according to Year 11-13 students from New Zealand schools&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>The insight comes from <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6848" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">CensusAtSchool TataurangaKiTeKura<&sol;a>&comma; a non-profit&comma; online educational project that brings statistics to life in both English and M&amacr;ori-medium classrooms&period; Supervised by teachers&comma; students from Years 5-13 anonymously answer 30<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6849" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">questions<&sol;a> in English or te reo M&amacr;ori on digital devices&period; The project is run by the<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6872" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Department of Statistics<&sol;a> at the University of Auckland in partnership with the<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6873" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Ministry of Education<&sol;a> and<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6874" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">StatsNZ<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This year&comma; more than 2&comma;840 Year 11-13 students &lpar;aged 15-18&rpar; only were asked&colon; How wrong do you think it is for someone your age to a&rpar; drink alcohol b&rpar; smoke tobacco cigarettes&semi; c&rpar; smoke e-cigarettes d&rpar; smoke marijuana&period; They were able to choose a range of options on a scale from &OpenCurlyQuote;not at all wrong’ to &OpenCurlyQuote;very wrong’&period; The results showed that 61&percnt; of students felt that it was very wrong for people their age to smoke cigarettes&comma; followed by smoking marijuana &lpar;52&percnt;&rpar;&comma; smoking e-cigarettes &lpar;44&percnt;&rpar;&comma; and drinking alcohol &lpar;22&percnt;&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Students were also asked how their parents&sol;caregivers would feel about them doing the same things&period; The results were smoking cigarettes &lpar;81&percnt; of students felt that parents would consider this very wrong&rpar;&semi; marijuana &lpar;76&percnt;&rpar;&semi; e-cigarettes &lpar;69&percnt;&rpar; and alcohol &lpar;33&percnt;&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>CensusAtSchool co-director Rachel Cunliffe says that the finding that smoking cigarettes&comma; which is legal&comma; was rated as worse behaviour than smoking marijuana&comma; which is illegal for recreational use&comma; was surprising&period; &&num;8220&semi;Our figures can’t tell us why students perceived smoking cigarettes as worse than smoking marijuana&comma;&&num;8221&semi; she says&period; &&num;8220&semi;However&comma; we can speculate that it has something to do with what they see and hear around them and changing societal attitudes&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For example&comma; New Zealand has had an anti-smoking <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6850" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">law<&sol;a> since 1990&comma; which has discouraged and denormalised smoking for all of these students’ lives and most of their parents’ existence&period; Twenty-five years ago&comma; one in four people aged 15 or over smoked daily&semi; today&comma; the <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6851" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">tally<&sol;a> is 13&percnt;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In contrast&comma; although marijuana is illegal&comma; it is the most-used illicit drug in New Zealand&comma; with researchers <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6852" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">estimating<&sol;a> that by the age of 21&comma; around 80&percnt; of young people will have used marijuana at least once&period; Pressure to legalise marijuana for recreational use has built to the extent that New Zealanders will choose whether or not to legalise and regulate it in a<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6853" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">referendum<&sol;a> alongside the general election next year&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>In other findings&colon;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>&NewLine;• The older teens became&comma; the less likely they were to see drinking alcohol as a bad thing for people their age to do&period; In Year 11&comma; 28&percnt; of students saw drinking alcohol as very wrong&period; By Year 13&comma; that figure was 12&percnt;&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;• As students aged&comma; they perceived that their caregivers relaxed over the issue of them drinking as well&period; One in two Year 11 students &lpar;42&percnt;&rpar; felt that their parents would see drinking alcohol as a bad thing for people their age to do&period; By Year 13&comma; that figure was one in six &lpar;17&percnt;&rpar;&period; <br &sol;>&NewLine;• However&comma; this was not the case with cigarettes&comma; with less of a drop as students aged&period; In Year 11&comma; 65&percnt; felt that cigarette smoking by their age group was very wrong&comma; compared to 55&percnt; in Year 13&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;• The figures for perceived parental attitudes towards teens smoking cigarettes did not drop much with age&period; A total of 82&percnt; of Year 11s said their parents would view their age group smoking as very wrong&comma; compared to 79&percnt; of Year 13 students&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h6>CensusAtSchool runs every two years&period; This year’s census&comma; the ninth&comma; was launched on March 4&period; More than 23&comma;000 students from 458 schools have taken part to date&period; See if your local school has participated <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;departmentofstatistics&period;acemlna&period;com&sol;lt&period;php&quest;s&equals;74a8769a720c21e02956ad6a22046ae6&amp&semi;i&equals;469A518A4A6854" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">here<&sol;a>&period; CensusAtSchool is part of an international effort to boost statistical capability among young people and is carried out in Australia&comma; Canada&comma; the United States&comma; Japan and South Africa&period;The countries share some questions so comparisons can be made&period;<&sol;h6>&NewLine;

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