Legalizing cannabis for medical use does not increase teen use, according to a recent study. The study compared Rhode Island, which passed medical marijuana laws in 2006, to neighboring Massachusetts. Massachusetts does not allow for medicinal cannabis use and was chosen for cultural and geographic similarity. The results are congruent with those of research conducted by Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in 2005 and 2011 that examined multiple medical marijuana states.
“Our study did not find increases in adolescent marijuana use related to Rhode Island’s 2006 legalization of medical marijuana; however, additional research may follow future trends as medical marijuana in Rhode Island and other states becomes more widely used,” said lead researcher, Esther Choo.
“Whether they are taking it for pain or for vomiting control or appetite, this is not a group we think of as superinspiring for young people to take up their drug pattern. It’s an older population who is generally very ill,” she said, referring to the small group for whom she sees medical marijuana laws have increased access.
Choo is an emergency physician at Rhode Island Hospital and assistant professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School. She plans to continue analysis and include other states.
The study, funded by Rhode Island Foundation, compared youth usage trends from 1997 and 2009. Self-reports on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey were analyzed for 32,570 students. Researchers presented the results on Wednesday at a meeting of the American Public Health Association.
“Of course, I’m delighted to see that their work confirms my previous report that medical marijuana laws do not increase teen use,” Mitch Earlywine told TIME magazine’s Maia Szalavitz. Earlwine is co-author of MPP’s study and associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York–Albany. He said that Choo’s research was “very careful about potential covariates and looks closely at a couple of states across time in a way that my work didn’t.”
