According to new data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of high school students who report regularly consuming marijuana has fallen over the past decade.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011-2021 found that the percentage of high-schoolers who report having used marijuana over the past 30 days fell from 23% in 2011 to 16% in 2021, with the decline being more pronounced among males than females. This is despite the fact that in 2011 there was exactly zero legal marijuana states, and now there’s 21.
“These latest findings add to the growing body of scientific literature showing that legalization policies can be implemented in a manner that provides access for adults while simultaneously limiting youth access and misuse”, says NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano. “Furthermore, these findings stand in sharp contrast to the sensational claims often made by legalization opponents, claims that thus far have proven to be baseless.”
As noted by Armentano, the latest CDC findings are consistent with those of numerous other federally funded national surveys documenting declining rates of cannabis use by young people during the same time that a growing number of states legalized the adult-use marijuana market. Since 2012, 21 states have legalized the use of cannabis products for those age 21 or older.
A previous CDC study, published in 2020, similarly reported that the percentage of high-schoolers who had ever used cannabis also declined over the better part of the past decade. Another 2020 study, this one published in in the Journal of Adolescent Health, “found no evidence that RML [recreational marijuana legalization] was associated with [an] increased likelihood or level of marijuana use among adolescents. Rather, among adolescents who reported any use of marijuana in the past month, the frequency of use declined by 16 percent after RML.”
In 2021, Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, publicly acknowledged that the enactment of statewide laws regulating the adult-use cannabis market has not led to an increase in the percentage of young people experimenting with the substance.
