Study: Medical Cannabis Laws Don’t Impact Teen Use Rates

Another study has once again affirmed that the enactment of statewide medical cannabis laws is not associated with increased rates of adolescent marijuana consumption.

According to data published this week in the American Journal of Public Health, the passage of medical marijuana laws in various states has had no “statistically significant … effect on the prevalence of either lifetime or 30-day marijuana use” by adolescents residing in those states.

Researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine evaluated the effects of medical marijuana laws on adolescent marijuana use rates during the years 2003 and 2011. Investigators “found no evidence of intermediate-term effects of passage of state MMLs (medical marijuana laws) on the prevalence or frequency of adolescent non-medical marijuana use in the states evaluated.” Authors concluded, “Our results suggest that, in the states assessed here, MMLs have not measurably affected adolescent marijuana use.”

The study’s findings rebut often repeated claims from cannabis prohibitionists that the passage of therapeutic cannabis laws adversely impacts teens’ usage of the substance.

In fact, numerous published studies have contradicted this claim. A 2012 analysis of statewide cannabis laws and adolescent use patterns of commissioned by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany concluded: “Our results suggest that the legalization of medical marijuana was not accompanied by increases in the use of marijuana or other substances such as alcohol and cocaine among high school students. Interestingly, several of our estimates suggest that marijuana use actually declined with the passage of medical marijuana laws.”

A separate 2012 study by researchers at McGill University in Montreal and published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology reported similar findings, concluding: “[P]assing MMLs (medical marijuana laws) decreased past-month use among adolescents … and had no discernible effect on the perceived riskiness of monthly use. … [These] estimates suggest that reported adolescent marijuana use may actually decrease following the passing of medical marijuana laws.”

Previous investigations by research teams at Brown University in 2011 and Texas A&M in 2007 made similar determinations, concluding, “[C]onsistent with other studies of the liberalization of cannabis laws, medical cannabis laws do not appear to increase use of the drug.”

Full text of the study, “Effects of State Medical Marijuana Laws on Adolescent Marijuana Use,” appears online in the American Journal of Public Health.

Article republished from NORML