New survey finds Washington teens perceive less risk from marijuana use

A recent study reveals that Washington teens’ view of the harmfulness of marijuana has decreased since the state legalized the drug for recreational use by adults in 2012. They’re also reportedly using it more. According to this Reuters article:

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.

 

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.

The findings on teen usage are particularly interesting given the recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health numbers showing a substantial decrease in marijuana use by Colorado teens since that state began selling legal weed in 2014. As The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham reported:

The state-level data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 18.35 percent of Coloradans ages 12 to 17 had used marijuana in the past year in 2014 or 2015, down sharply from 20.81 percent in 2013/2014. (In this survey, years are paired for state-level data to provide larger sample sizes). That works out to roughly a 12 percent drop in marijuana use, year-over-year.

 

Year-over-year teen marijuana use fell in most states during that time period, including in Washington, the other state to open recreational marijuana markets in 2014. But that drop wasn’t statistically significant…

 

This federal data released this week is the first clear evidence of a drop in teen marijuana use in Colorado following legalization. Legalization supporters have long argued that the best way to prevent underage marijuana use is to legalize and regulate the drug.