Monday, December 5, 2011

Legalizing Medical Marijuana Does Not Increase Teen Use

By David Lawrence, MD


According to three different hospitals and universities, survey data has been produced showing that adolescent use of marijuana does not change when states legalize medical marijuana.

The investigative research team was comprised of individuals from Brown University in Rhode Island, Oregon Health science University, and Boston Medical Center and evaluated trends in teen marijuana use in both Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island. Massachusetts was a great control state because medical marijuana is not legal there. Rhode Island, however, does have legal medical marijuana laws which has been on the books since 2006 for a number of medical conditions.

This survey was not small. It included over thirty two thousand students and found no statistically significant differences existed between the usage of marijuana between the two states in any of the dozen years evaluated. The instrument used in the sample was a self report known as the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System. The twelve years evaluated were between 1997 and 2009.

This research project has been backed up by one that was done at the Texas A&M Health Sciences Center. When medical marijuana was first made legal back in 2006 in Rhode Island, one of the big concerns was whether or not the increased availability and potential appeal would result in higher use. The project displayed that marijuana use was fairly common overall, but it did not vary between the years of whether it was legal or not.

The study was funded by a grant from the Rhode Island foundation. There was no funding received from any company or private industry entities. The researchers noted that they will continue to administer the surveys to try and see if adolescent use does change as more and more states legalize marijuana for medical use. Currently 16 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. Recent studies have shown that currently over 50% of the United States agrees with complete legalization of marijuana, whereas over 70% agree with legalization of marijuana for medical use.




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