Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have already legalized some form of marijuana; critics of decriminalization and making the drug ready for medical purposes have had major concerns that are valid to consider. For instance, increase in usage. Many believe that the legalization of cannabis would increase how many teenagers would indulge in the drug. However, studies show that these concerns no longer need to be argued over.
A new report has shown that “marijuana use among American high school students is drastically lower today than it was 15 years ago.” This was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. According to data collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey has shown that 40% of teens in 2014 admitted to having had smoked marijuana while 47% did in 1999. Although drug use has decreased, teenagers are still indulging in it at a higher rate than they are other illegal drugs, researchers pointed out. Only 3% of those had ever tried meth, down from 9% in 1999.
Renee M. Johnson is an assistant professor in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He said in an interview that his team has been studying many substances that teens tend to abuse.
“Interestingly, we found that use of other drugs — including alcohol, cigarettes, hallucinogens, ecstasy, meth, and cocaine — also decreased over the time period,” he said.
For instance, 41.1% of the younger people surveyed have said that they had smoked cigarettes versus over 70% in 1999. Alcohol fell from 81% to 66%. In addition, marijuana use does not discriminate by gender. 42% of boys and 39% of girls claim to have smoked marijuana at least once in 2013.
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