Something curious has happened to the young, a new government report suggests: “the number of high school students who use marijuana has decreased by almost half — 44 percent — since states started enacting adult-use legalization.”
I’m quoting an article from September 22. In it, Marijuana Moment editor Tom Angeli repeatedly contrasts the decrease in teen cannabis use with the rise in state legalizations. “The new federal data, released on Monday, shows that 12.9 percent of high school students currently consume cannabis, which is defined as having used it at least once in the past 30 days. That’s down from 23.1 percent in 2011 — the year before the first U.S. states approved recreational marijuana legalization laws.”
Angeli reminds us of a standard argument against marijuana legalization: If marijuana is readily available, kids will increase usage of the
Hasn’t happened!
But why?
It may be relevant to note that sexual activity among the young has gone way down. So has testosterone in boys; teen pregnancies are also
Meanwhile, teen use of prescription drugs is way up. If your brain function is altered by one or more psychiatric medications, doctor prescribed, perhaps these compete with traditional psychoactive drugs, reducing demand.
Angeli insists, however, that “[p]rior research also suggests that marijuana use by young people has generally fallen in states that legalize it for adults.”
If this turns out to be true, we may have to accept his framing: a significant driver of drug use among young people is The Cool Factor, and legal drugs are not cool; prohibited drugs are.
For decades, anti-drug activists used celebrities and cartoon characters to convince kids that “drugs aren’t cool.”
Instead, legalization did the job.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Just Say Uncool”
The matter is complicated, and I’d hesitate to embrace any theory, simple or complex, about why young people are consuming less marijuana. But decriminalization plainly did not have some of the social effects about which we were warned.
People who tell us that, without fear of government or without fear of G_d, everyone or most people would engage in this-or-that undesirable behavior are often sincere in their beliefs, but then generally projecting their own psyches upon the rest of us. Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart weren’t hypocrites; they looked within themselves, and saw urges that they thought only the fear of G_d could control. Social conservatives similarly look within themselves, and find ids barely kept in check. The mistake that these people make is in believing that mankind are typically thus.
Maybe marijuana use is down among teens for another reason. Legalization didn’t make marijuana use ‘uncool’. It made buying it more difficult. As with alcohol, many states require buyers to be at least 21 years of age. The neighborhood pusher didn’t have to worry about age requirements or other legalities. He found different drugs to peddle to teens. Legal businesses that sell marijuana can’t risk losing their licenses.