Legalized Medical Marijuana Doesn't Increase Teen Usage, Study Finds

[+Malamute]

Legalized Medical Marijuana Doesn't Increase Teen Usage, Study Finds

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/debraborchardt/2015/06/15/legalized-medical-marijuana-doesnt-increase-teen-usage/

 

One of the biggest worries about legalized medical marijuana was that teenagers would smoke more pot, but it turns out those fears were wrong. A study just published in The Lancet Psychiatry showed no significant difference in adolescent marijuana use in the 21 states with medical marijuana laws.

This exhaustive study using over 24 years of data from over a million teenagers in 48 states found no evidence that legalized medical marijuana led to teenagers using pot more. Deborah Hasin, Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, reviewed data on teenagers between the ages of 13-18 and during the years 1991-2014. “Our findings provide the strongest evidence to date that marijuana use by teenagers does not increase after a state legalizes medical marijuana. Rather, up to now, in the states that passed medical marijuana laws, adolescent marijuana use was already higher than in other states. Because early adolescent use of marijuana can lead to many long term harmful outcomes, identifying the factors that actually play a role in adolescent use should be a high priority,” said Dr. Hasin.

 

This study supports the 2013 report from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment that found that high school marijuana use decreased from 22% in 2011 to 20% in 2013. The data was collected before recreational marijuana was made legal, but it did demonstrate that legalizing medical marijuana did not send the message that it was okay to use. Dr. Larry Wolk, the CDPHE director said, “As with tobacco, youth prevention campaigns will help ensure adult legalization of marijuana in Colorado does not impact the health of Colorado kids.”

 

In California where medical marijuana has been legal for many years in an unregulated environment, marijuana use in teens has remained less prevalent than the years before the marijuana was legal according to results from the 13^th Biennial California Student Survey. Stepping back to 2012, a study entitled, “Medical Marijuana Laws and Teen Marijuana Use” by D. Mark Anderson, Ben Hanson and Daniel Rees did not find that legalizing medical marijuana increased pot use in teens. They actually found that during the time period they collected data, pot use increased among teens, but not in the states where medical marijuana was legal.

In a linked comment to the study by Dr. Hasin, Dr. Kevin Hill of McLean Hospital’s Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse said, “The growing body of research that includes this study suggests that medical marijuana laws do not increase adolescent use and future decisions that states make about whether or not to enact medical marijuana laws should be at least partly guided by this evidence. The framework of using a scientific method to challenge what might be ideological beliefs must remain an important driver of future research on marijuana policy.”

 

Organizations that are against legalizing medical marijuana like Smart Approaches to Marijuana cite a report from Monitoring the Future by the University of Michigan that says access to pot has increased and usage is up. The report, a National Survey on Drug Use, instead notes that pot use cycles up and down amongst teens and that it has actually dropped in 2013-2014. 23% of teens use marijuana now as compared to 36% in 1979.

This report points out the marijuana has been the consistently most available illicit drug since 1975 where 81% of teens said they could get it,moving up to 90% now. However, being about to get it and wanting to use it are two different things. The report said, “In 2014 marijuana use showed a one-year, slight decline in lifetime, annual, thirty-day, and daily use in all three grades. This finding is unexpected in light of the positive publicity marijuana has received in recent years prior to the data collection in 2014, with several states allowing medical marijuana use and two states (Colorado and Washington) legalizing recreational use for adults.”

 

Study attached

 

AdolescentMarijuana.pdf

[t-pain]

Because early adolescent use of marijuana can lead to many long term harmful outcomes

what are the long term harmful outcomes?

 

spending too much time ordering at taco bell?

[Indigro]

what are the long term harmful outcomes?

 

spending too much time ordering at taco bell?

it might subtly alter the brain chemistry, which in turn, could influence how actual brain matter grows and functions. perhaps it could turn a person to develop greater empathy for others, which would interfere w one's ability to become successful in a myriad of professional occupations and outcomes. bunny muffin, we might become nicer people... a potential devastating affect to our society, and bottom line.

 

btw... they had all the doom and gloom in montana, where they effectively gutted the mmj law based on the claim that it would harm the kids through rampant drug use. guess what came of the census that occurred around the same time... no increase in use if not minor decreases. their law is still gutted though.

[trichcycler]

Everybody knows concert t-shirts cause acne

[Restorium2]

what are the long term harmful outcomes?

 

spending too much time ordering at taco bell?

Keeping them from turning into hard core alcoholics.

[trichcycler]

you believe cannabis users are on the verge of turning into hardcore alcoholics?

[t-pain]

resto is saying that cannabis keeps people from relapsing on alcoholism.

 

it would be an interesting study vector to see if medical marijuana states had lower alcohol dui or AA members or AA rehab etc.

[trichcycler]

are you also saying that ?

[Restorium2]

What I meant was you don't see kids that use cannabis being hard core drunks that die early in life. 

[bobandtorey]

How happy are we going to be when marijuana is finally legalized? 

First, does anyone really believe that it won’t be available to young children? If so, they are all wearing blinders. It actually started with medical pot as early as 2013. 

Since medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado, more than a dozen young children have been unintentionally poisoned with the drug. About half of the cases are from kids eating pot-laced cookies, brownies, candy or even soda. 

As reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Colorado saw a significant spike in the number of children treated for accidentally eating marijuana treats after Colorado relaxed their drug laws. 

Of course, like just about anything else, follow the money. I have to laugh when I read about the states, counties and cities that are all trying to figure out how to get their share of the goodies (taxes). 

Another item: Since it became legal in Washington State, pot smokers arrested for DUII is at a record high. In the first six months, 743 drivers stopped by police tested positive for THC in their blood. More than half of those were over the state’s new legal limit. Just what we need (as if drunk drivers aren’t enough), more “high” drivers on the roads. I’ve always heard that our once-great county is being dumbed down (along with our education system), and this is just another step in that direction. 

Jim Nikirk 

Oakland

 

http://www.nrtoday.com/news/opinion/16833304-113/letter-medical-marijuana-decisions-have-widespread-consequences

Edited June 18, 2015 by bobandtorey