Usa: Legalization Of Medical Cannabis Use Does Not Increase Use In Adolescents

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USA: Legalization of medical cannabis use does not increase use in adolescents

 

 

Passing laws that legalize the medical use of cannabis in a number of US states decreased past-month cannabis use according to a publication in the journal Annals of Epidemiology by scientists of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in adolescents. They replicated a prior study that found greater adolescent cannabis use in these states and extended this analysis by accounting for confounding factors. Researchers used state-level estimates of cannabis use from the 2002 through 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

 

Cannabis laws decreased past-month use in youth by 0.53 percentage points and had no discernible effect on the perceived riskiness of monthly use. Authors wrote that their analysis "yielded little evidence that passing MMLs [medical marijuana laws] affects marijuana use." They concluded that there is only "limited evidence of causal effects" of these laws on cannabis use.

 

(Source: Harper S, Strumpf EC, Kaufman JS. Do Medical Marijuana Laws Increase Marijuana Use? Replication Study and Extension. Ann Epidemiol. 2012 Jan 27. [in press])