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 States should consider developing evidence-based prevention programs
aimed at adolescents before they legalize the recreational use of
marijuana, the researchers say.
"Across the country there has been a decreased perception of risk
and an increase in marijuana use among adolescents," said lead
author Magdalena Cerda, of the University of California, Davis
School of Medicine in Sacramento.
She told Reuters Health that trying marijuana at a young age is tied
to an increased risk of regular use later on. Chronic use of
marijuana may be tied to negative outcomes, such as psychosis and
poor financial status.
Cerda's team reports that since 1996, 28 states and Washington D.C.
have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and Colorado and
Washington state legalized it for recreational purposes in 2012.
For the new study, the researchers used data from a national survey
of 253,902 teens in grades eight, 10 and 12. The survey, conducted
between 2010 and 2015, included questions about how harmful
adolescents perceived marijuana to be and whether they had used it
within the past month.
In Washington state, eighth graders' perception of marijuana's
harmfulness fell by about 14 percent from before legalization (2010
to 2012) to afterward (2013 to 2015). Similarly, among 10th graders,
the perception of harmfulness decreased about 16 percent.
Additionally, the proportion of kids reporting marijuana use in the
previous month rose 2 percent among eighth graders and about 4
percent among 10th graders over that same period.
Those changes were significant when the researchers compared them to
states that hadn't legalized recreational marijuana, where teens'
perception of harm fell by 5 to 7 percent and their use of the drug
only increased about 1 percent.
There were no significant changes in perceived marijuana harmfulness
or use among 12th graders in Washington, however. The researchers
speculate that older students may already have a fully formed
opinion of marijuana.
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Additionally, the researchers didn't see any significant
before-and-after-legalization differences among students in
Colorado. Possibly, they say, this might be because adolescents
there were exposed to a robust medical marijuana industry before its
recreational use was legalized.
In an editorial accompanying the new study, Dr. Alain Joffe of Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore said research on
marijuana is crucial for public policy development.
"Sound public policy should be based on data that are meticulously
collected and thoughtfully analyzed," writes Joffe, who is an
associate editor of JAMA Pediatrics. "The evolving status of
marijuana in the United States provides a critical opportunity for
us to do so."
Since 2012, Alaska, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon
and Washington, D.C. have also approved marijuana for recreational
use.
Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its
opposition to the legalization of marijuana, which it says may be
harmful to youths (see http://reut.rs/2hhKNH2).
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2hhGGeo JAMA Pediatrics, online December 27,
2016.
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