Marijuana Policy Project

Researchers at the Institute for Child Health Policy at the University of Florida College of Medicine examined what effect, if any, medical marijuana laws have on teen use. U.S. anti-drug officials like the drug czar have said such laws decrease the perception of risk and therefore lead to an increase in teen use. Looking at data from 2003-2011 from Montana, Rhode Island, Michigan, and Delaware, these researchers found "no discernible pattern suggesting an effect on either self-reported prevalence or frequency of marijuana use." They conclude that passage of medical marijuana laws does not measurably affect adolescent marijuana use.

Replicating a prior study, but controlling for state characteristics and measurement error, researchers found that medical marijuana laws have little discernible impact on teen marijuana use or perceptions of the risk of marijuana use in those states. In fact, their research showed that passage of medical marijuana laws actually resulted in a slight decrease in teen marijuana use.

This article examines the subjective impact of medical cannabis on the use of both licit and illicit substances via self-report from 404 medical cannabis patients recruited from four dispensaries in British Columbia, Canada. A 44-question survey was used to anonymously gather data on the self-reported impact of medical cannabis on the use of other substances. Over 41% state that they use cannabis as a substitute for alcohol, 36.1% use cannabis as a substitute for illicit substances, and 67.8% use cannabis as a substitute for prescription drugs. The three main reasons cited for cannabis-related substitution are “less withdrawal,” “fewer side-effects,” and “better symptom management.”