More and more U.S. high schoolers are likely to use marijuana as a result of increased legalization, according to a new report published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
The study also indicated that many Americans abstain from marijuana because it is illegal, and not because they believe it to be anything "wrong."
Both Washington and Colorado recently legalized the sale and possession of marijuana for recreational use, a trend that is expected to continue around the country. 19 states and the District of Columbia have made medical marijuana available and 15 states have decriminalized use of the drug.
The study was conducted by New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research. They examined high schoolers considered at a low risk of using marijuana, that is, religious students, non-cigarette smokers and those with friends who disapprove of the drug's use. The study, titled "Correlates of Intentions to Use Cannabis Among U.S. High School Seniors in the Case of Cannabis Legalization," used data from Monitoring the Future (MTF), which included almost 10,000 high school seniors. 61 percent of those asked reported they hadn't used marijuana. The majority reported they would try the drug if it were legal.
"Our study focused on intention to use and it was the first to find that groups generally not 'at risk' become more 'at risk' when legalized," said Dr. Joseph Palamar of NYU's Langone Medical Center in a news release.
"What I personally find interesting is that this suggests that many people may be solely avoiding use because it is illegal, not because it is 'bad' for you, or 'wrong' to use," he added.
The researchers focused on cohorts from 2007 to 2011. They collected the data before Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana, but after medical marijuana was legalized or pending legalization in up to 16 states.
"Assuming that onset use would occur before or during the senior year, the study's results suggest that this would constitute a 5.6 percent absolute increase in lifetime prevalence in this age group, rising from 45.6 percent to 51.2 percent," Palamar said. "However, lifetime prevalence increases as adolescents age into adulthood. So by age 26, 64 percent of young adults in the U.S. are expected to use marijuana in their lifetime in the current policy context. We don't know whether those found to be at risk in this study are the same adolescents that are going to use at an older age regardless of legal status."
The researchers cautioned that, as marijuana use increases, so will the importance of preventing adverse consequences that may be associated with use.
