A Wall Street Journal iinvestigation reveals that social media site TikTok serves up a continual stream of content about sex and promoting drug use—to minors. The article used a series of fake accounts linked to underage users to to examine the site’s powerful algorithms and how they quickly drive minors—among the biggest users of TikTok—to endless spools of content that often glorifies drugs and drug use. They also found that even with the site’s filters in place, videos about drugs tend to proliferate, creating what one expert called a perfect sotrm in which social media normalizes and influences the way they view drugs or other topics. With tens of thousands of videos being uploaded to the site every minute, young people are exposed to more dubious content than ever before, and it becomes extremeley difficult for moderators to screen and delete questionable content. We need stronger regulation and control of social media sites like TikTok and the content they distribute to young people.
Meanwhile, a new German study finds that e-cigarettes are a gateway to cannabis use for young people. Researchers studied students who had never used marijuana, and during that time nearly 30 percent reported using e-cigarettes at least once, and of those 17.4 percent began using marijuana. The marijuana initition rate among this group was 34.5 percent compared to 10.4 percent of those who never used e-cigarettes.
And finally, a bill pending before the California Assembly reads like a wish list of demands by the powerful cannabis industry. If approved, the bill would allow food and beverages like soda adulterated with psychoactive THC in quanitites exceeding legal cannabis edibles. It would also permit THC foods to be sold in regular food stores outside of the legal cannabis market. The expanded guidelines would also legalize hemp cigarettes and e-cigarettes, including flavored products like those the California legislature banned for tobacco in 2020.