Research paper
The effect of medical cannabis laws on juvenile cannabis use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.05.018Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We investigate whether medical cannabis laws influence cannabis and illicit drug use among juveniles.

  • Results suggest that medical cannabis laws escalate juvenile cannabis use.

  • Findings also show that medical cannabis laws have little effect on juvenile illicit drug use.

Abstract

Background

A number of states in the United States legally allow the use of cannabis as a medical therapy to treat an illness or to alleviate symptoms. Concern persists as to whether these types of laws are increasing juvenile recreational cannabis use. It is also plausible that medical cannabis laws engender an escalation of illicit non-cannabis drug use among juveniles because cannabis is frequently considered to be a gateway drug.

Methods

This study uses longitudinal data drawn from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health for the 50 U.S. states and a cross-sectional pooled-time series research design to investigate the effect of medical cannabis laws on juvenile cannabis use and on juvenile non-cannabis illicit drug use. Our study period encompasses five measurement periods calibrated in two-year intervals (2002–2003 to 2010–2011). This research design is advantageous in that it affords us the ability not only to assess the effect of the implementation of medical cannabis laws on juvenile drug use, but also to consider other state-specific factors that may explain variation in drug use that cannot be accounted for using a single time series.

Results

Findings show that medical cannabis laws amplify recreational juvenile cannabis use. Other salient predictors of juvenile cannabis use at the state-level of analysis include perceived availability of cannabis, percent of juveniles skipping school, severity of perceived punishment for cannabis possession, alcohol consumption, percent of respondents with a father residing in household, and percent of families in the state receiving public assistance. There is little empirical evidence to support the view that medical cannabis laws affect juveniles’ use of illicit non-cannabis drugs.

Conclusion

Based on our findings, it seems reasonable to speculate that medical cannabis laws amplify juveniles’ use of cannabis by allaying the social stigma associated with recreational cannabis use and by placating the fear that cannabis use could potentially result in a negative health outcome.

Section snippets

Background

Because of its purported medicinal value (Clark, 2000, Kramer, 2015, Lynch and Ware, 2015, Watson et al., 2000), both the nationwide and worldwide popularity of legalizing cannabis for medical purposes has reached epic proportions. A 2010 Gallup poll found that approximately 70% of Americans are in favor of allowing doctors to prescribe cannabis to mitigate pain (Mendes, 2010), whereas a survey of 1446 physicians from 72 countries revealed that 76% of the physicians supported the use of

Methodological problems with prior research

Although certainly informative, much of the prior research examining the effect of medical cannabis legislation on attitudes toward cannabis use and on recreational cannabis use is problematic for a number of reasons making any conclusions tentative at best. Methodological problems include small and unrepresentative samples, an overreliance on cross-sectional data, inappropriate statistical methodology, and a general failure to investigate the possibility that medical cannabis laws increase

Data and methods

We analyze data for juveniles from 2002 to 2011 for the 50 U.S. states, which constituent political entities that share sovereignty with the United States federal government. Juveniles are defined as persons, 12–17 years of age. The data, which encompass five measurement periods calibrated in two-year intervals (2002–2003, 2004–2005, 2006–2007, 2008–2009, and 2010–2011), are derived from two different sources. These two sources include the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and Progcon.com.

Results

Fig. 1 shows the percent of cannabis use among juveniles in the 16 medical cannabis states before and after they passed a medical cannabis law. This figure also depicts the percent of juvenile cannabis use for the remaining states that did not pass a medical cannabis law during the observation period. A visual inspection of Fig. 1 reveals that juvenile cannabis use was consistently higher in states that passed, or that would eventually pass a medical cannabis law than and in states that did not

Conclusion

Several prior studies link medical cannabis laws to amplified levels of cannabis use among juveniles and our analysis finds further credible evidence to support this research. The strong effect of the medical cannabis law variable persists even after controlling for a variety of potential rival causal factors. Such a finding supports opponents of medical cannabis laws who often argue that these laws lead to an intensification of recreational cannabis use among juveniles. That said we find no

Conflict of interest

There are no conflicts of interest associated with this publication.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions for improving this manuscript.

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