Cannabis prohibition laws across the country are beginning to crumble. Legislators and policymakers, along with a number of public health professional organizations now support the decriminalization of cannabis.
The “War on Drugs” is responsible for creating more adverse effects on youth with cannabis arrests and the legal consequences that follow, without increasing public safety or reducing use in this vulnerable population.
The common misconception is that reducing cannabis penalties through legalization and decriminalization increases consumption putting those under 21 at greater risk.
Nine researchers from Washington University of St. Louis, Eastern Virginia Medical School and the University of Illinois at Chicago sought answer the question: “Does cannabis decriminalization lead to increased cannabis use for youths?”
The authors discovered when a state loosens cannabis laws through decriminalization, “we see no evidence of increases in youth cannabis use. On the contrary, cannabis use rates declined after decriminalization…”
State decriminalization measures were studied between the years 2008 and 2014, for Massachusetts (decriminalized in 2008), Connecticut (2011), Rhode Island (2013), Vermont (2013), and Maryland (2014).
Grucza, Rick and Krauss, Melissa and Plunk, Andrew and Agrawal, Arpana and Chaloupka, Frank J. and Bierut, Laura, Cannabis Decriminalization: A Study of Recent Policy Change in Five States (February 23, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3129032 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3129032