States Decriminalizing Marijuana Saw No Increase in Youth Use, Wash U Prof Finds [View all]

ST. LOUIS -- Do states that decriminalize marijuana see more teens using it? According to a landmark study led by a professor at Washington University, the answer is a clear no.

Dr. Richard Grucza, a professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine, says he believes his just-published study is the first to examine the issue since one looking at California in 2015 found increased use among high school seniors, but not their counterparts in eighth grade or tenth.

But this study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, found no such results. And it's far more comprehensive — looking at five states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and Maryland) for a longer period of time. Massachusetts, for example, decriminalized pot in 2008; Grucza's team was able to look at seven full years of youth-use surveys, comparing them with 27 states that did not decriminalize.

And the researchers found no increase in the five states in question. Not for seniors, and not for sophomores or eighth graders either. "People have said that if the state reduces the criminal penalties for possession, that's a go-ahead for people to start using," he says. "But we have not seen dramatic increases in drug use. To say simply reclassifying it as a civil offense is sanctioning drug use is a little misguided."

Read more: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/07/18/states-decriminalizing-marijuana-saw-no-increase-in-youth-use-wash-u-prof-finds