marijuana lawyer blog

January 8, 2017

Report: Teens Now Find it Tougher Than Ever to Find Marijuana

One of the primary concerns of opponents to marijuana legalization was that it was going to fall into the hands of teenagers, whose brains are still developing and lack the full capacity for risk assessment. teen

Now, a new study analyzes a host of risky teen behavior, including marijuana consumption. Among the findings of the Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by the University of Michigan, younger teens are reporting that marijuana is more scarcely available to them now than it was nearly 25 years ago.

At this point, explanations for this trend are theoretical. What we do know, however, is that legalization of marijuana leads to greater regulation. It undercuts the black market, where there are no rules about who can buy marijuana or how much. With those black market outlets shrinking, it puts most of the supply in the hands of regulated dispensaries, which are overseen by the state. The state has very strict rules about who can purchase the drug, how much they can buy – and how old those buyers have to be. Continue reading

July 15, 2016

CDC: Increased Marijuana Access Linked to Lower Teen Use Rates

By Cannabis Law Group

Contrary to all the fears hyped by anti-marijuana advocates, statewide marijuana laws that allow for legal access – both medicinal and recreational – are not associated with increased teen use. In fact, according to the most recent research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the opposite is true. joints

The CDC just released its latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which monitors six different types of health risk behaviors that cause or contribute to death and disability among teens and young adults. One of those is alcohol and other drugs.

What they found was that the percentage of teens who had ever used marijuana had increased significantly – from 31 percent to 47 percent – from 1991 to 1991. If you’ll recall, 1997 was the year California approved marijuana as medicine, and there was a great deal of fear that California’s law and those adopted in other states would prompt an even bigger spike. But that didn’t happen because from 1997 to 2015, there was a decrease from 47 percent to 38 percent. Specifically when we look at 2013 to 2015, which is when states started passing recreational marijuana laws, the prevalence of teens who used marijuana nationally dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent. Continue reading

June 23, 2016

Colorado’s Teen Marijuana Use Lower After Legalization

By Cannabis Law Group

One of the main talking points of those opposed to the legalization of marijuana is that it will spur the inevitable increase of teen marijuana use. We all have an interest in keeping the drug out of reach of youth when it’s not used as medicine, so it’s always been a particularly compelling argument. teenager

But now, the latest research from Colorado – one of the first states to legalize the drug for recreational purposes – is that teen marijuana use has actually DROPPED since the drug became more widely available to the over-21 crowd.

A survey of Colorado high school students regarding their marijuana consumption was part of the biannual poll conducted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. What’s more, the percentage of high school students who used marijuana in Colorado was actually lower than the national average among their peers. Continue reading