A new study released by the Columbia University Medical center this week shows that in states with legalized medical marijuana, teen pot smoking witnessed a small drop.
The study dispels pushback from some politicians that greater legalization would have an effect on teen smoking.
“The evidence suggests that legalizing marijuana will increase the number of minors who use this drug,” New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan told the crowd in her 2014 “State of the State” address.
It’s an understandable worry, said the study’s lead author Deborah Hasin, a professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center.
But the new study appears to prove it wrong.
“People have a lot of concerns that passing the medical marijuana laws ‘sends the wrong message to teens’ by saying it’s safe or possibly acceptable,” she said.
So Hasin and her colleagues analyzed more than a decade’s worth of reponses to annual national surveys given to teens across the country.
California
Questionnaires from more than a million adolescents were reviewed.
Of those teens living in the 23 states and the District of Columbia that have passed medical marijuana legislation since 1996, self-reported marijuana use did not increase, but in fact went down.
The study also revealed that states with medical marijuana laws had higher teen use to begin with compared to other states.
“I think it’s really clear from our findings that up to now, passing a medical marijuana law in a given state doesn’t lead to post-law increases in teen marijuana use,” Hasin said.
But when it comes to legalized recreational use and teen smoking behavior any trend has yet to be seen, Hasin said.
“It’s a little hard to say what would happen in the future,” she added. “Our plan is to keep monitoring the trends if more states pass laws to see how it passes over time.”
