A study in America has discovered a decrease in recreational marijuana use by high-school students in legalised states.
Published by the Medical Journal JAMA Pediatrics on July 8th, the paper saw an 8% drop in highschoolers using the drug in the last 30 days.
Overall, the use of marijuana by young people in the United States has increased from 0.6% in 1991 to 6.3% in 2017, according to the American Journal of Public Health, but the legalisation of the drug in certain states has had contradicting effects.
The study analysed data from 1993 to 2017 on around 1.4 million high school students in America using data from the annual National Youth Risk Behaviour Surveys and the US Centers for Disease Control.
The paper also discovered a 9% decrease by high school students who have said they have used marijuana at least 10 times in the last 30 days.
Marijuana legalisation has been happening all over America and has enabled even your average Joe to be able to buy the bud, as long as he has proof of age.
The study suggests that perhaps the reason why recreational marijuana use has dropped for young people is due to the fact that by legitimising marijuana, it has taken it from the streets and given it to licensed dispensaries that require identification.
Perhaps if Australia legalised recreational marijuana our numbers would also decrease because isn’t it really only a concern to a developing brain?
You can check out the full study here.
