Survey data released today indicate that teenagers were less likely to smoke pot last year than at any point since 2002, despite the message supposedly sent by the relaxation of marijuana laws during that period.
In the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 6.5 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds reported using marijuana during the previous month, down from 8.2 percent in 2002. That 21-percent decline occurred during a period when 20 states and the District of Columbia legalized marijuana for medical use and eight states legalized it for recreational use. Adolescent cannabis consumption is even down since 2014, when state-licensed marijuana shops began serving recreational customers in Colorado and Washington. So far Attorney General Jeff Sessions' fear that legalization would make cannabis more appealing to teenagers has not been borne out.
By contrast, past-month marijuana use has been rising more or less steadily among 18-to-25-year-olds since 2006 and among adults 26 or older since 2011. Last year about 21 percent of the younger group and 7 percent of the older group reported past-month use. There is some evidence that marijuana is substituting for alcohol, since past-month drinking is down 8 percent among 18-to-25-year-olds since 2006 and 3 percent among Americans 26 or older since 2014.
"Critics of legalization worry about the message being sent to youth by marijuana policy reform efforts, but the real message is that marijuana should only be used by responsible adults, and it seems to be sinking in," says Morgan Fox, senior communications manager at the Marijuana Policy Project. "Regulating marijuana for adults reinforces that message and creates effective mechanisms for making it more difficult for teens to obtain marijuana. Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol, and regulation gives adults the legal option to choose the safer substance."
We know from our research and that of others that heavy marijuana use is associated with poor academic performance and noncompletion of college, said John Schulenberg, PhD,
You really have nothing to offer in a debate other than your repetitive lying about me. But go ahead - keep it up and keep looking like a 12 -year-old.
Do you think pot, heroin and crack should be illegal?
I believe that what we are doing now just isn't working. Other countries have legalized all drugs and with some good results.
It's insane to keep pushing the same policies and expecting different results.
Or are you pushing for them to be legal?
No. I post my opinions which you don't like, too bad.
You'd prefer the Duarte/Philippines approach - kill suspected drug dealers on sight.
No, I am saying it's something that needs to be considered.
You and Tpaine have aruged that it is unconstitutional to make drugs illegal.
Lets see heroin is illegal and it kills people and we try to stop it and offer people treatment.
Trying something else to you is making it legal and seeing what happens. You even said other countries have had success making harmful drugs legal. That is dumb.
Look Deckard I don't really dislike you, in fact I like you. I just like ripping your positions on certain subjects because you are wrong. Ok.
When I call you a drug pusher i'm not saying you are selling drugs to kids or anyone else. I'm just saying you are pushing for legalization of harmful drugs that I see as destroying peoples lives. They just wanted to try it for fun then they get hooked and fuck up their lives. So I would like to see those drugs gone. I know that can't happen completely but we have to try.
Then people like you come around and say its your right to get high and be a waste of flesh. Drugs should be legal and you people who don't want them legal are tyrants and assholes. Well you are wrong Deckard.
You run around saying police state when we have a pretty free country. The police don't harass you like they do in say Mexico or other countries. You take little problems and magnify them and pretend they are the most important thing. Then you dismiss bigger problems like murder and say it's the law. You are kind of like a likable at times doofus.