TUESDAY, February 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Teens appear more tempted to try, as adult adoption rises, according to a new study from California.
After the state legalized adult marijuana use in 2016, teen drug use also rose after years of steady decline.
The researchers analyzed survey data from more than 3 million seventh, ninth, and eleventh grade students who answered questions about their marijuana use from the 2010/11 through 2018/19 school year.
In the last two surveys, the marijuana use question was changed to include the words “smoke, steam, food or drink” to reflect the growing variety of marijuana products.
Between the 2017-18 school years and 2018-19 school years after the pot was legalized for adults, marijuana use rose 23% in the past 30 days and teenagers’ likelihood of lifelong use increased by 18%.
According to the researchers, vaping may have contributed to increased use of the drug. They also found that there was a larger increase in groups of teenagers with historically lower usage rates, as well as older teenagers, men, blacks, and Asian teenagers who consumed regularly in the past 30 days.
The results were published on February 15 in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
“I was a little surprised to find that the prevalence of marijuana use increased relatively more among younger adolescents [seventh-graders] versus ninth and eleventh graders, women versus men, non-Hispanics versus Hispanic teens, and whites versus teens of other races, ”said lead researcher Mallie Paschall, lead scientist at the Prevention Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley , California.
“In other words,” he added in a press release, “there has been a greater rise in marijuana use prevalence among teenagers in” low-risk “groups following the legalization of recreational marijuana, which is worrying.”
One possible reason for this is that legalization normalized marijuana use, Paschall suggested.
“We also need to take a closer look at what’s happening at the local level because marijuana policies are very different in communities in California and the US,” he said.
Paschall added that researchers need to know more about how young people get pot and what forms to use because there is such a variety of cannabis products currently available.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is more concerned with teenagers and marijuana.
Source: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, press release, February 15, 2021
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