Youth cannabis use plummeted in 2020 among the coronavirus pandemic, and as more states moved to pass cannabis legalization, a recently released federal survey discovered.
The latest table from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, or the NSDUH for short, is yet another instance of a federally backed research program testing the prohibitionist narrative that ending cannabis prohibition for adults will commence increasing underage cannabis usage.
Cannabis use from the past year for youth aged 12-17 dropped from 13 percent to 10 percent from 2019-2020, the study, administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA. Moreover, for adults in the 18-25 age classification, past-year use descended from 35 percent to 34 percent in that duration.
For this latest study, researchers stressed that there were differences in methodology due to COVID-19. Discussions were conducted digitally, rather than in person, to assure safety, for instance. However, due to the alteration, care should be used when differentiating estimations.
Past examples of the annual study have constantly showcased that cannabis legalization foe’ predicted spike in underage cannabis use as reformation extents has not come to fulfillment. Consequently, past-year cannabis use for teenagers measured in at 13 percent in 2012, when states first began passing bills regarding cannabis legalization for adult use. Cannabis use by adults aged 26 and older has been rising upwards over the last couple of years.
Paul Armentano, assistant director of NORML, revealed to a popular cannabis news outlet that the new federal table again notes that cannabis-related offenses in states’ cannabis policies have not influenced any significant surge in cannabis use among the youth.
Admittedly, this is the newest in a developing body of proof that cannabis legalization does not lead to upticks in youth cannabis use, notwithstanding cannabis prohibitionist arguments to the antithesis.
For instance, a case study written by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that rates of juvenile cannabis use do not grow after states enact cannabis legalization for medicinal or recreational use.
National Institute on Drug Abuse or NIDA Director Nora Volkow, likewise acknowledged in a recent conversation that cannabis legalization had not yielded any increase in youth cannabis use.
Earlier this spring, a national publication also questioned the cannabis prohibitionist anecdote that state-level cannabis legalization influences increased youth cannabis use.
The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics further analyzed youth studies of high school learners from 2009 to 2019. It inferred that there’dbeen no calculable difference in the rate of those in grades 9-12 who recorded consuming cannabis at least once in the last 30 days.
In a different, more pioneering analysis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that cannabis consumption among high school students diminished during the peak ages of state recreational cannabis legalization.
The study also found no variation in the rate of cannabis use among high school learners from 2009-2019. When investigated using a quadratic evolution model, nevertheless, lifetime cannabis consumption dropped drastically during that period.
A federally backed Monitoring the Future disclosure published last year revealed that cannabis consumption among juveniles did not notably change in any of the three classes for lifetime use, past 12-month treatment, past 30-day application, and daily utilization from 2019-2020.
Another investigation released by Denver officials in 2020 revealed that juvenile cannabis use in the state has not changed since cannabis legalization in 2012, though consumption methods vary.
An official with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Cannabis Initiative went even further, revealing that, for unknown reasons, juvenile consumption of cannabis is going under in The Centennial State and other approved states.