Did Teen Pot Smoking Rise or Hold Steady This Year? Yes.

The latest results from the Monitoring the Future Study, which tracks drug use by teenagers, generated dueling press releases today from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). DPA's take: "Monitoring the Future Survey Finds Cigarette and Alcohol Use at Historic Lows, with Marijuana Use Holding Steady." MPP's headline is notably different: "Teen Marijuana Use Continues to Rise Despite High Arrest Rates." The latter jibes better with the press release from the University of Michigan researchers who conduct the study under contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

Marijuana use continues to rise among U.S. teens, while alcohol use hits historic lows

…Marijuana use among teens rose in 2011 for the fourth straight year—a sharp contrast to the considerable decline that had occurred in the preceding decade. Daily marijuana use is now at a 30-year peak level among high school seniors.

So did marijuana consumption by teenagers hold steady or go up this year? According to the researchers, we can't be sure (emphasis added):

Marijuana use continued to rise among 10th and 12th graders this year for all prevalence periods (lifetime, past year, past 30-days, and daily use in the past 30-days). No one of these changes was large enough to be statistically significant, but they all continue the pattern of a gradual rise.

The share of seniors who admitted smoking pot in the previous month, for example, rose from 21.4 percent in 2010 to 22.6 in 2011. For 10th-graders, this number rose from 16.7 percent to 17.6 percent, but among eighth-graders it fell, from 8 percent to 7.2 percent. None of these changes was statistically significant.

But looking at data for the last several years, you can see a modest upward trend in this number since 2006 among 12th-graders and since 2008 among 10th-graders. Past-month use by high school seniors has risen by 4.3 percentage points since 2006, an increase of 23 percent. But it is still a bit lower than it was in the late 1990s and substantially lower than it was in the late 1970s and early '80s. Past-month use by seniors peaked in 1978 at 37.1 percent, 64 percent higher than today's level. "Daily" use, defined as "use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days," also peaked in 1978, when it hit 10.7 percent. This year it is 6.6 percent, which is indeed "a 30-year peak level," meaning it is lower than it was at the beginning of the Reagan administration.

Although they describe the data somewhat differently, DPA and MPP both note continued declines in cigarette smoking and drinking by teenagers, which they see as evidence that underage consumption can be more effectively addressed in legal markets than it can under prohibition. "The decline in cigarette smoking is great news," says DPA's Jag Davies, "not just because it's the most deadly drug but also because it reveals that legal regulation and honest education are more effective than prohibition and criminalization." MPP's Rob Kampia offers a similar spin:

Political leaders have for decades refused to regulate marijuana in order to keep it out of the hands of drug dealers who aren't required to check customer ID and have no qualms about selling marijuana to young people. The continued decline in teen tobacco and alcohol use is proof that sensible regulations, coupled with honest, and science-based public education can be effective in keeping substances away from young people. It's time we acknowledge that our current marijuana laws have utterly failed to accomplish one of their primary objectives – to keep marijuana away from young people – and do the right thing by regulating marijuana, bringing its sale under the rule of law, and working to reduce the easy access to marijuana that our irrational system gives teenagers. 

The once startling fact that high school seniors are more likely to have smoked pot in the last month than tobacco (22.6 percent vs. 18.7 percent) reinforces Kampia's point. While we should not ignore the likelihood of leakage from a legal marijuana market, it is important to emphasize that the law distinguishes between adults and minors with respect to many risky decisions, that concerns about underage access hardly count in favor of maintaining a black market where such distinctions are ignored, and that the government should not treat all of us like children simply because some of us are.

Comments

[Tman]

I never understand why they bother to base any significant analysis on the results of supposedly "anonymous" teenagers admitting or denying the use of Marijuana. I remember taking these quizzes in high school and no one in the room believed for a second that the survey was anonymous, thus the accuracy of the responses was pointless since a majority of teenagers don't believe their answers are anonymous.

Unless you are using arrest records and drug test results ONLY there is NO WAY to accurately measure the usage of weed in High School.

[peachy]

When my high school went through a drug panic phase, the administration had everyone fill out a usage survey. I was in Theory of Knowledge class when they were handed out, and our teacher (who was thoroughly peeved at the idiocy of it all) took advantage of the opportunity for a lesson on data reliability. (I'm quite positive I was the only one in the room who told the truth, and that was only because I honestly had nothing to hide... otherwise I would have lied like rug too.)

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Spicoli saved Brooke Shields from drowning, and was rewarded with a large amount of money. He then blew it all by hiring Van Halen to play at his birthday party.

[Episiarch]

His dad also has this ultimate set of tools.

[Michael Bolton, Cinephile]

I really enjoy that movie. Especially the performance of Phoebe Cates.

[Notsayin']

So... the new tobacco taxes have made kids say, if they both cost a lot might as well go for the high?

Doesn't regular MJ use, since its not filtered, cause lung cancer faster than tobacco use? I thought i read that study somewhere a couple years ago.

[R C Dean]

Doesn't regular MJ use, since its not filtered, cause lung cancer faster than tobacco use?

Unless someone lets us in on what counts as "regular MJ use" v. "tobacco use", this is a statement almost completely devoid of content.

[rst]

That's government accounting for you. When it doesn't rise as fast as they'd like, they call it a cut. When it doesn't fall as fast as they'd like, they call it a rise.

[Rich]

There is no evidence that shows MJ use causes a higher risk of lung cancer than tobacco. There are instances where MJ extracts have helped to reduce or prevent cancer. It is a very powerful and useful substance. Not to mention all of the textile uses for industrial hemp. Let the states legalize, regulate and tax it, making it just as hard for kids to get their hands on as alcohol. Where I am from it was ALWAYS harder to get alcohol. Drug dealers don't check ID.

[malcolm kyle]

Prohibition increases usage rates while legalized regulation restricts access to young people.

Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco - two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.

There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody 'halfway bright' and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to let legal businesses meet that demand.

No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer, only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?

If you support prohibition you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history.

If you support prohibition you've helped escalate the number of people on welfare who can't find employment due to their felony status.

If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.

If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.

If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.

If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.

If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent.

If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.

If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.

If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.

If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.

If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.

If you support prohibition then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.