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"This is considerably less than nationwide use by 12 to 17 year olds in 1979."

Yeah, so?

It could very well be that Alaskan teen use in 1979 was 28.4%. Do you know that it wasn't? Do you know what it was?

Yes, overall teen use fell from 1979 to 2002. But, overall teen use bottomed out in 1988-1990 at 5.4% and remained relatively flat for the next 10 years or so while Alaskan teen use continued to fall another 50%.

You're saying that continued free fall was due to a lag? Any other state or states lagging besides Alaska to support that contention?

Just a coincidence that Alaskan teen use fell 50% after making marijuana illegal again while use in the rest of the country remained flat?

I don't buy your "lag" theory. You have nothing to support it. You don't even have a reason why you think it would lag to begin with. Why not lead?

"Just a coincidence that Alaskan teen use fell 50% after making marijuana illegal again while use in the rest of the country remained flat?"

Where are you getting that it fell 50%? If it really was double the national average for persons 12 to 17 in 1988, it was 10.8% in 1988 because the national average was 5.4%. I've read that it was almost double, if you believe the results of the college survey compared to SAMHSA's number. So even if the college survey was right on the money it probably wasn't even 10.8%. In 1999, it was 10.4%, about the same as it was eleven years prior in 1988, again only if you believe the college survey was an accurate representation of actual marijuana use numbers for Alaskans 12 through 17. It may very well have gone down with the rest of the nation by 1990. As we can see between 1985 and 1988 the national numbers dropped by half and the same could have happened in Alaska, but by 1999 it was back up again. We can't know for sure because the first state by state data appears to have been published by SAMHSA in 1999. Anyway, by 2002 use by Alaskans 12 to 17 was 9.44%. There is zero evidence of anything close to a 50% drop. And even if a 50% drop occurred during the period for which there were no state by state surveys, the rest of the nation saw actually more than a 50% drop in the late 1980's through 1992 and Alaska could have been just following the national trend, albeit just a little late.

If you say the laws passed in Alaska in 1990 reduced teen marijuana use by 50%, you are just making things up. There is no evidence to support that claim. If the college survey done in 1988 produced accurate results that were comparable to SAMHSA's numbers (a big if), then marijuana use by that demographic in Alaska as of 2002, the last time SAMHSA published state by state numbers, was only a little lower than it was back in 1988.