Dec 14, 2009
The federal government just released the latest ‘Monitoring the Future’ survey of teen drug use, and the results do not bode well for current policies. More high school seniors report smoking marijuana in the past 30 days than smoked cigarettes: 20.6 percent vs. 20.1 percent. And marijuana use is up (albeit in the same general range it’s been in for several years) while teen cigarette smoking continues to decline, and has dropped markedly since the early ‘90s.
Regulation of tobacco, combined with solid educational campaigns, has clearly cut youth access to cigarettes. It’s time for officials to take off their blinders and apply those same proven policies to marijuana.
Oh, and just in case someone tries to blame medical marijuana laws for the rise in teen marijuana use, use by teens has actually gone down in the medical marijuana states.