Teen marijuana use has not increased “even as state legalization has proliferated across the country,” a federal health official said on Wednesday in announcing the latest data from an annual survey that again showed prohibitionist concerns about youth cannabis access have “not played out.”
The 2022 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—which is conducted by the University of Michigan with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)—found that rates of past-year cannabis use “remained stable for all three grades surveyed,” remaining below pre-pandemic usage levels even as more state marijuana markets opened and expanded for adults.
“There have been no substantial increases at all,” Marsha Lopez, chief of NIDA’s epidemiological research branch, said in response to a question from Marijuana Moment during a webinar on Wednesday. “In fact, they have not reported an increase in perceived availability either, which is kind of interesting.”
“So whatever is happening with adult-use [legalization] across the country has not really impacted the younger people according to the data here,” she said.
Hellbound and Down 