MJ moment
States that have legalized marijuana for recreational use have seen sharp declines in youth treatment admission rates for the drug, according to a new federal report that also shows teen admission rates for cannabis misuse fell nationwide by nearly half during the 2008-2017 period. Medical cannabis laws, meanwhile, appear to have no connection to teen treatment rates, according to the peer-reviewed research published on Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data seem to refute warnings by legalization critics who predicted that ending prohibition would lead to ballooning rates of youth substance misuse. “Consistent with prior research on medical marijuana and adolescent marijuana use, medical legalization status does not appear to correspond to treatment admission trends,” says study, published in the CDC journal GIS Reports. “Notably, however, 7 of 8 states with recreational legalization during the study period fall into the class with the steepest level of admissions decline.” Via Jeremy Mennis / U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Author Jeremy Mennis, a professor at Temple University, assembled the report by collecting state-level data on teen treatment admissions where the primary substance used was marijuana. Dividing the annual admissions numbers by the number of adolescents in each state, obtained through U.S. Census data, allowed him to determine each state’s admission rate over time. Mennis then displayed the state-by-state data on a map, taking into account both the state admissions rates themselves and the direction each was trending over time. “The map depicts both the slope of the admissions rate (ie, admissions rate gain or loss) and the mean of the admissions rate (ie, admissions rate magnitude) for each state,” the report says. Nationwide, the average annual admissions rate over the study period “declined over the study period by nearly half, from 60 (admissions per 10,000 adolescents) in…
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Source : Teen Marijuana Treatment Admissions Fell Sharply In States That Legalized, Federal Report Shows
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