"Availability of marijuana, which might increase if the drug were legalized, clearly has been shown to affect adolescents' use. Adolescents who have been offered marijuana are 7 times more likely to use it than are those who have not been offered marijuana. Similarly, those who report that marijuana is easy to get are approximately 2.5 times more likely to use it than those who consider it hard to get.
Some advocates for the legalization of marijuana argue that it is safer than alcohol. They suggest that increased use of marijuana by young people might have a positive effect if some adolescents switched from alcohol to marijuana (a substitution effect). This theory cannot be supported by recent studies on adolescent marijuana and alcohol use that incorporated the price of marijuana into the analysis. These studies conclude that an increase in use of marijuana by adolescents would result in an increased use of alcohol (ie, that the 2 drugs are economic complements).
From a public health perspective, even a small increase in use, whether attributable to increased availability or decreased perception of risk, would have significant ramifications. For example, if only an additional 1% of 15- to 19-year-olds in the United States began using marijuana, there would be approximately 190 000 new users." - Legalization of Marijuana: Potential Impact on Youth
|