Posted on 04/25/2014 11:39:44 AM PDT by Ken H
FRIDAY, April 25, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- American teens' use of marijuana doesn't increase when states approve the drug for medical use, a new study finds.
"Any time a state considers legalizing medical marijuana, there are concerns from the public about an increase in drug use among teens," principal investigator Dr. Esther Choo, an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, said in a hospital news release.
Choo's team examined 20 years of data from states that do and don't permit medical marijuana use. They found that legalizing medical marijuana did not lead to increased illicit pot use by high school students.
The data showed that nearly 21 percent of teens had used marijuana in the past month, but there were no significant differences in pot use before and after a state legalized medical marijuana, according to the study released online April 15 in advance of print publication in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
She said the findings add "to a growing body of literature published over the past three years that is remarkably consistent in demonstrating that state medical marijuana policies do not have a downstream effect on adolescent drug use, as we feared they might."
(Excerpt) Read more at health.usnews.com ...
Corrected link => http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2014/04/25/legalizing-medical-marijuana-doesnt-raise-teen-pot-use-study-says
“...20 years of data...”?????
How long has pot been legal?
Sounds like mathmatical m*sturbations on a level only achievable by climate change idiots.
Medical use, huh.
Experts !
What would Hope N’ Change scammers do without them?
CA was the first to enact medical mj in 1997. Wouldn’t it be relevant to study the years prior to that for comparison?
Not really. It’s necessary to have a baseline of teen use before legalization in order to see what the effect was after legalization. And California’s law passed in 1996, so it’s almost 20 years old.
They are talking about medical marijuana. It’s been legal in Colorado for 14 years. Don’t know about other states.
Legal or illegal, people who want to use drugs, will.
Alcohol has been legally (again) killing people for almost 100 years. I wonder what percentage of people in the USA never use it.
Over 70% don’t smoke tobacco, the other killer, even though it’s legal. The news of the dangers has an effect over time. Once the dangers of pot can be better documented through studies, it’s use will go down also.
and 15 year old kids didn’t drink when they lowered the drinking age in 1973. Nope, no one from the Malden High School Class of 1973 bought beer at Fiorgione’s Liquor store for those of us who hung around Pearl Street Park.
Didn’t know it was as legal in CA for 20 years and assumed they were comparing the past with the very new experiences in Colorado (only two deaths thus far). If so, I’ll use the Emily Latilla response, “Never mind.”
A letter, signed and sent by federal legislators Wednesday February 12th, 2014 states that marijuana’s current status “makes no sense,” and requests that President Obama “instruct Attorney General Holder to delist or classify marijuana in a more appropriate way.”
And the 18 are.......In addition to Representative Blumenauer, the Congressional letter sent to President Obama Wednesday was co-signed by Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN), Sam Farr (D-CA), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), James Moran (D-VA), Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Jared Polis (D-CO), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
All I know is that now that weed is legal in Denver(I work downtown),the atmosphere has gone to..well...pot. It positively reeks downtown, folks walk up and down the street and loitering around businesses flaunting their new found freedom.
and 15 year old kids didn’t drink when they lowered the drinking age in 1973. Nope, no one from the Malden High School Class of 1973 bought beer at Fiorgione’s Liquor store for those of us who hung around Pearl Street Park.
But isn’t there a difference between it being legalized for medicinal use and it being available for general use?
The analogy might be a teenager stealing medication from moms medicine cabinet versus it being available for general consumption like alcohol and it being given to a teen at a party or by friends.
Intrastate regulation of both tobacco and pot should be done by states per the Tenth Amendment. Agreed?
Yuck. I used to work in Denver too.
Wonder if the more seedy elements are using now. If they were before, then they did a pretty good job of keeping it hidden.
Thanks for letting me know. We won’t be going downtown any time soon. Even for the Old Spaghetti Factory. :(
Flaunting freedom? Sound horrible.
<><><><
Hilarious.
If the results of this study were the opposite, that states with legalized med maryjane showed an increase in pot use, that study would be noted with the words "I told you so" writ large and often.
bfl
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