Study: Legalization ≠ Increase Teen Use
Well, well, well. They say facts don’t lie, but let’s see how the fear-mongering politicians try to debunk this study.
Let me guess, Columbia University isn’t a creditable resource. Columbia University??? Where is that again??? I wonder if the organizers of SAM, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, would argue Cosmopolitan is more creditable. I know I’m trying to be funny, but this really is not a laughing matter. How can people in political power be so closed minded in modern society, it is truly mind-boggling.
Additionally, this study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the New York State Psychiatric Institute. These sources are normally the go-to-standard for politicians.
I’ll let you be the judge. You have the right to vote for your beliefs.
No, Medical-Marijuana Legalization Doesn’t Make Teens Smoke More Pot
By: Rachael Rettner
For years, people have debated whether legalizing marijuana could lead to an increase in the use of the drug among teens. But a new study finds that’s not the case, at least for laws that legalize medical marijuana.
The study found that teen use of marijuana doesn’t seem to change when the drug is legalized for medical purposes.
“For now, there appears to be no basis for the argument that legalizing medical marijuana has increased teens’ use of the drug,” senior study author Deborah Hasin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, said in a statement.
However, Hasin said that future research should continue to explore this question, because the situation may change as medical marijuana becomes more commercialized and as more states legalize marijuana for recreational purposes.
The Basis
For the new study, the researchers analyzed information from 11 previous studies that looked at teen marijuana use from 1991 to 2014.
The researchers looked at teen pot use in the past month, before and after marijuana laws changed in various states. They then compared that trend with trends in states where the drug wasn’t legalized.
Overall, teens’ usage of the drug did not change after medical-marijuana laws were passed in their state.
In 1996, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana, and today, 29 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana.
Although the new study didn’t find an increase in overall teen use of marijuana, more research is needed to look at other possible effects of legalization, such as changes in daily use of the drug among those who already use marijuana and the development of marijuana dependence, the researchers said.
The study is published online (Feb. 22) in the journal Addiction.
H/T: Live Science and EurekAlert!
The Team:
The first author of the paper is Aaron L. Sarvet. Co-authors are Melanie M. Wall, Katherine M. Keyes, David S. Fink and Emily Greene, Mailman School of Public Health; Aline Le, Columbia University Medical Center; Anne E. Boustead, University of Arizona; Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Rand Corp.; Magdalena Cerdá, University of California, Davis, and Sandro Galea, Boston University.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA034244, R01DA040924, K01DA030449, T32DA031099), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (K01AA02151, and by the New York State Psychiatric Institute.