By Paul Armentano, norml.org
Once again a new study has affirmed that the enactment of statewide medical marijuana laws is not associated with increased rates of adolescent use.
According to a report published online in June, 2013 by the American Journal of Public Health, the passage of medical use laws has had no “statistically significant … effect on the prevalence of either lifetime or 30-day marijuana use” by adolescents in those states.
Researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine studied data from the years 2003 and 2011 and “found no evidence of intermediate-term effects of passage of state MMLs (medical marijuana laws) on the prevalence or frequency of adolescent nonmedical 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 the myth that passage of medical cannabis adversely impacts teen usage. In fact, published studies have repeatedly debunked 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: “[L]egalization 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 that passing 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.”
Investigations by research teams at Brown University in 2011 and Texas A&M in 2007 made similar determinations, concluding that, “liberalization of cannabis laws [and] medical cannabis laws do not appear to increase use of the drug.” — West Coast Leaf News Service
