In the USA, recreational cannabis is now legal in 24 states. In the EU, Germany has led the way: in recent weeks it was the first major European nation to decriminalize consumption, and in the coming months it should legalize sales within a network of state-licensed shops. A precedent that will probably push many other EU nations to follow the German example, especially if it proves effective in reducing – as hoped by the authorities – the volume of the illegal market and the revenues of organized crime. And if fears that it encourages consumption, particularly among minors, are overcome. In this sense, an American study just published in the journal Jama Pediatrics seems encouraging: legalization in the USA seems to have actually decreased the use of cannabis among younger people.
The study comes from researchers at Boston College, and used the responses of 890 thousand students collected between 2011 and 2021 from a biennial survey that investigates risky behavior among American adolescents. By cross-referencing young people's responses with the dates of cannabis legalization in the 24 American states where this occurred, the researchers then estimated the impact of legalizations on cannabis consumption, and potentially related harmful habits, such as alcohol and cigarettes.
According to the results, the opening of legal cannabis shops does not promote its spread among adolescents. And indeed it seems, at most, to contribute to discouraging it: every year that has passed since legalization was in fact correlated with an 8 percent reduction in the probability that a teenager would consume cannabis. Looking instead at the actual availability of legal recreational cannabis, the opening of shops with a sales license was linked to a 28% reduction in adolescent consumers, but also to a 26% increase in the frequency with which adolescents smoke cannabis they consume the substance. In short, it seems that the availability of a legal supply chain for the purchase of cannabis discourages new consumers and pushes those who already used it to stop, but it is also an incentive to smoke it more for those who decide to continue using it.
The availability of a legal supply chain for the purchase of cannabis discourages new consumers and encourages those who already used it to stop
Moving on to the other vices for which it is feared that smoking cannabis could represent a gateway, legalization in America would instead be linked to a lower propensity to consume alcohol among adolescents, does not seem to influence cigarette smoking, and instead reduces the probability who use electronic cigarettes.
The authors of the study believe that the results demonstrate that legalization and the creation of a controlled market do not therefore encourage consumption among younger people. However, they could contribute to increasing the quantity of cannabis used by those adolescents (decreasing but still present) who decide to use the substance anyway, a detail which indicates the need for greater controls, given the proven damage it can cause in this key period of physical and mental development.