Sakchai Lalit/AP hirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana products for medical use, and 24 of those have legalized it for adult recreational use. As states establish their legal marijuana markets, their main priority — before addressing concerns around tax revenue, social equity issues, illegal markets, or anything else — should be ensuring that young people are protected from exposure to marijuana and can’t access it.
But implementing strong and comprehensive protections for children is not the norm in many states that have legalized recreational marijuana use.
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Evidence from research and lessons learned from state and local government policies have demonstrated what works to protect kids from legal and commercialized addictive products like tobacco and alcohol, and how lapses in protection have failed to keep kids out of harm’s way of new and emerging products such as nicotine vapes. But states generally aren’t heeding those lessons for marijuana.
A growing body of research links marijuana legalization to problems among young people, including increased marijuana use , lower perceptions of marijuana’s risks , and some serious physical and mental health problems. Reports to poison control centers of kids consuming products containing THC , the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, are on the rise; the largest increase in such reports in recent years is due to intentional ingestion of marijuana edibles among adolescents. Youth-appealing advertising and marketing that contribute to the normalization and appeal of marijuana use among young people is par for the course when it comes to legal marijuana.
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Recent national data demonstrate that about 1 in 5 people ages 12 to 20 (“underage” youths) reported using marijuana in 2022, and new research shows clinicians are voicing concern about marijuana legalization’s effects on young people. They cite more use of high-potency marijuana products and its adverse mental and physical effects, younger ages of starting use, greater use among kids trying to self-medicate mental health symptoms, and generally more permissiveness around adolescent use.
Partnership to End Addiction , the organization we […]
As states legalize recreational marijuana use for adults, they must prioritize protecting kids
