‘No Cap’ Marijuana Legalization Ain’t Making Kids Smoke More, Says Study from AMA

Yo, peep this new research study that just dropped, fam. Authors of a fresh article published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday straight up said there ain’t no proof that states’ decision to make weed legal for adults has caused an uptick in young heads puffin’ on the herb.

So, check it, the homies from Montana State University and San Diego State University got together and checked out responses from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), where they asked high-school students about all sorts of health-related stuff. The report breaks it down that the four authors looked at data from 207,781 peeps.

Findings showed that when states decided to make recreational marijuana legal (RMLs), it didn’t have any impact on how much youngins were smoking up.

“In this study, we couldn’t find any proof that RMLs were making kids want to smoke weed,” says the two-page paper published in JAMA Psychiatry. “After legalization, there wasn’t an increase in marijuana use.”

And get this, even when weed shops opened up, it didn’t change how many teenagers were lighting up. “The estimates from the state YRBS and estimates of how the first dispensary opening affected marijuana use were pretty much the same,” the team wrote.

The authors pointed out that their study had more info on different state policies than any other study on RMLs and youth marijuana use. They had data from before and after legalization for 12 states, with nine of them offering info from before and after retail sales started. They also included data from 36 states that didn’t have laws allowing adult-use cannabis.

This data comes right after another JAMA study earlier this month that found that neither legalization nor opening up retail shops led to more young people smoking weed. In fact, teens were saying they’re not using marijuana as much, along with seeing an increase in those who say they don’t drink or vape either.

Another study found that as time went on, adult-use marijuana laws actually made it less likely for youngsters to use cannabis. Each year of having RCL was linked to a higher chance of not using weed at all.

The big debate over youth cannabis use has been heated as more states think about making weed legal. Supporters and haters of the idea don’t always agree on how to read these studies, especially when some results are all over the place like in JAMA’s recent paper.

Recent data from Washington State showed a drop in both lifetime and recent marijuana use among students since legalization went into effect. The results also revealed that getting weed became harder for underage students after the law changed.

A Canadian study also found that high-schoolers said it was tougher to get their hands on weed after their country made it legal nationwide.

A U.S. health official even stated that teen marijuana use hasn’t gone up despite more states giving the green light to legalization.

And just so you know, rates of student cannabis use have been falling as more states legalize weed. Even a study from Massachusetts found that kids weren’t more likely to smoke up after their state made weed legal.

In conclusion, the research suggests that making weed legal doesn’t mean more young people will start using it. So next time someone tries to tell you otherwise, you can hit them with this knowledge straight from JAMA. Peace out!