Marijuana Legalization Leads to Decline in Teen Use

A study found that in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized teen use has declined. Perhaps it’s because something legal is no longer the “cool” thing to do for teens. Overall, teen use has declined 8% in marijuana states.

During the study, they scoured through data for 1.4 million high school students from 1993 through 2017, CNN reported.

Study author Mark Anderson said, “Just to be clear we found no effect on teen use following legalization for medical purposes, but evidence of a possible reduction in use following legalization for recreational purposes. Because our study is based on more policy variation than prior work, we view our estimates as the most credible to date in the literature.”

The study noted that one possible explanation for the decrease in teen marijuana use could be that in recreational marijuana states “it is more difficult for teenagers to obtain marijuana as drug dealers are replaced by licensed dispensaries that require proof of age.”