Teens favor real pot

While teens’ use of synthetic marijuana is on the decline, their attitudes toward real pot are trending in the opposite direction.

Synthetic marijuana—known by such names as K2 and spice—is made of dried plant material sprayed with various chemicals and packaged to look like weed, according to SFGate.com. After being introduced in the U.S. in 2009, an alarming number of emergency-room visits and deaths were tied to use of the drugs. But a report recently released by the National Institutes of Health found that the number of high-school seniors who have tried synthetic marijuana has dropped—from 11 percent of seniors in 2012 to 8 percent in 2013.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that a clear majority of high-school seniors—60 percent—do not see regular marijuana use as harmful to health, according to CNN.com. Additionally, more than a third of students surveyed reported smoking pot in the past year.