Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:


After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.

Legalising cannabis does not encourage young people to use drug, study reveals

Gloucester Citizen

Tuesday 16 Jun 2015

Legalising cannabis does not increase use of the drug among teenagers, scientists have said.

A new study of more than one million young people in the USA has found no evidence of a link between making the drug available for medical use and increased use in teenagers.

The study covered 48 states in the US and analysed data from 24 years from 1991 to 2014 - both before and after laws legalising cannabis.

Since 1996, 23 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation allowing medical use of the drug. But the move has provoked concern that such legislation will result in more teenagers trying and regularly using cannabis.

However, researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center found 'no significant difference' in adolescent use in 21 states.

Dr Deborah Hasin, Professor of epidemiology at the university in New York, said: "Our findings provide the strongest evidence to date that marijuana use by teenagers does not increase after a state legalises medical marijuana.

"Rather, up to now, in the states that passed medical marijuana laws, adolescent marijuana use was already higher than in other states.

"Because early adolescent use of marijuana can lead to many long-term harmful outcomes, identifying the factors that actually play a role in adolescent use should be a high research priority."

The survey covers more than one million students in grades eight, 10 and 12, aged 13 to 18, between 1991 and 2014.

Researchers examined the relationship between legalisation of medical marijuana and teenage use of the drug.

The research, which is published in The Lancet Psychiatry, will be published at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona.

http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Legalising-cannabis-does-encourage-young-people/story-26705346-detail/story.html

 

 

 

After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back. 




This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.

Feel free to link to this page!