Despite nearly nationwide smoking bans on college campuses, a new study found that students use of marijuana "was at the highest level seen" in more than three decades.

According to the University of Michigan's annual, national Monitoring the Future Panel study, marijuana use skyrocketed nationally in 2018 and reached "historic highs" not seen since 1983.

The study also found that the use of vaping products, or e-cigarettes, to vape marijuana as well as nicotine, doubled between 2017 and 2018.

"This doubling in vaping marijuana among college students is one of the greatest one-year proportional increases we have seen among the multitude of substances we measure since the study began over 40 years ago," John Schulenberg, principal investigator of the study, said in a written statement.

While the researchers are worried about the increased marijuana use, the vaping trend is particularly concerning because students often perceive vaping to be a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. E-cigarettes work by heating up a liquid filled with certain chemicals and flavors, which is then aerosolized and inhaled.

"There's this sense this it's culturally approved," Schulenberg, who is also a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. "There's this question of -- 'how bad can it really be?'"

Read the full article at Inside Higher Ed.