A federal study funded by Canada shows that youth marijuana use rates have dropped since the country legalized cannabis, countering concerns raised by prohibition.

Using data from Canada’s annual COMPASS Study, researchers from the University of Waterloo and Brock University compared trends in marijuana use among teenagers in 2017-2018 (pre-legalization) and 2021-2022 (post-legalization).

The study, published in the journal Addictive Behaviors Reports, found that 15 percent of students in the pre-legalization cohort reported past-month cannabis use, compared to 12.3 percent of the post-legalization cohort. Additionally, accounts of students who said they never used marijuana “increased” in this latter demographic.

In addition to examining rates of cannabis use, the researchers also sought to identify “risk factors” that may predict whether a student will use marijuana. And these factors changed between the two groups before and after legalization, which “suggests that prevention efforts need to be adjusted over time to target important risk factors associated with cannabis use.”

Specifically, it has to analyze Among more than 65,000 students across the two periods, although many risk factors were “common across the years,” “the relative ranking of risk factors changed significantly.”

“The main predictors of current (pre-legalization) cannabis use were time spent texting/messaging, daily breakfast consumption, and time spent doing housework, all of which also remained significant predictors in 2021-22,” the study authors said. “The main predictors of current (post-legalization) cannabis use were depression, a happy home life…and students’ perception that getting good grades was important.”

“Our results highlight an increase in reports of ever using cannabis and a slight decrease in current cannabis use in our sample,” the study says. “While this is in contrast to the evidence of higher levels of cannabis use among young people during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible to argue that the declines observed here (years after pandemic-related restrictions) may not be due to the pandemic itself, but likely due to regulations related to legalization and/or changes in social norms.”

“Given that cannabis use remains common among young people, there is a great need to identify the characteristics of young people who are at greatest risk for cannabis misuse and, at the same time, to develop and expand prevention and early intervention programs tailored to the needs of these high-risk youth. This study demonstrates that, over a short period of 4 years, the pre-cannabis legalization period, the pre-cannabis legalization period, the post-cannabis legalization era. the profile of risk factors has changed significantly, increasingly involving mental health conditions.

The COMPASS Study is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services.

German officials released the study after three months released a report on their country’s experience with national marijuana legalization.

That report found that opponents’ fears about youth use — as well as traffic safety and other concerns — are so far unfounded.

A separate recent study by German federal health officials also found this Marijuana use rates fell among young people after the country legalized adult use of cannabiscontradicting one of the most common prohibitionist arguments against reform.

In July, federal health data also indicated that marijuana use in the U.S. has increased in recent years. increase “driven by increases … among adults 26 and older.” For young Americans, rates of past-year use and cannabis use disorder, on the other hand, “remained stable among adolescents and young adults between 2021 and 2024.”

In the US, research suggests that youth marijuana use has declined in states that have legalized the drug for adults.

A report by the advocacy group Marihuana Policy Project (MPP), for example, found that Youth marijuana use has declined in 19 of the 21 states that legalized adult use—Adolescent cannabis use has dropped an average of 35 percent in the first states to legalize it.

The report cited data from a number of national and state youth surveys, including the annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey, which is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The latest version of the MTF, released late last year, found that cannabis use among eighth, 10th and 12th graders is now on the rise. lower than before states began enacting laws to legalize adult use in 2012 Young people’s perception that cannabis is easy to obtain also declined significantly in 2024 despite an expanding market for adult use.

Another survey conducted last year by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also showed that a The proportion of high school students reporting marijuana use in the past month has decreased in the past decade, when dozens of states moved to legalize cannabis.

At the state level, MPP’s assessment looked at studies such as the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey released in April 2024.

That survey found a decline in lifetime and past 30-day marijuana use in recent years. They remained stable until 2023 with significant decreases. The results also indicated that the ease of access to cannabis among underage students has generally decreased since the state enacted adult legalization in 2012, contrary to fears repeatedly expressed by opponents of the policy change.

And in June of last year, the two-year Healthy Kids Colorado Survey found just that Statewide youth marijuana use rates fell slightly in 2023—Remains significantly lower than before the state became one of the first in the U.S. to legalize adult cannabis in 2012.

The findings follow other past surveys that have investigated the relationship between marijuana and jurisdictions that have legalized youth cannabis use.

For example, a Canadian government report recently found daily or near-daily usage rates among adults and youth. remained stable in the last six years after the country passed legalization.

Another US study found that a “Significant reduction” in youth marijuana use from 2011 to 2021.— a period when more than a dozen states legalized marijuana for adults — that determined lower rates of lifetime and past-month use among high school students nationwide.

Another federal report released last summer concluded Between 2022 and 2023, cannabis consumption among minors — defined as people between 12 and 20 years old — has fallen slightly..

Additionally, a research letter published in April 2024 by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said there is no evidence. States passing laws to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults has increased youth use. of cannabis

Another study published by JAMA earlier this month also found that neither legalization nor the opening of retail shops led to an increase in youth cannabis use.

In 2023, however, a US health official said that adolescent marijuana use has not increased “even as state legalization proliferates across the country.”

Another study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Rates of current and lifetime cannabis use among high school students they have continued to decline amid the legalization movement.

A separate NIDA-funded study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2022 also found that at the state level The legalization of cannabis was not accompanied by an increase in youth use. The study found: “Young people who spent their adolescence under legalization were no more or less likely to have used cannabis by age 15 than adolescents who spent little or no time under legalization.”

Another 2022 study by Michigan State University researchers, Published in the journal PLOS Onefound that “retail sales of cannabis may increase exposure to cannabis for older adults” in legal states, “but not for minors who cannot purchase cannabis products at a retail outlet.”

Although trends were observed adult use of marijuana and certain psychedelics reaching “historic highs.” in 2022, according to separate data for 2023.

Photo by Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.