Science & Health
Teen Marijuana Treatment Admissions Fell Sharply In States That Legalized, Federal Report Shows

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.
âConsistent with prior research on medical marijuana and adolescent marijuana use, medical legalization status does not appear to correspond to treatment admission trends,â says study, published in the CDC journal GIS Reports. âNotably, however, 7 of 8 states with recreational legalization during the study period fall into the class with the steepest level of admissions decline.â
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 stateâs 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.
âThe 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,â the report says.
Nationwide, the average annual admissions rate over the study period âdeclined over the study period by nearly half, from 60 (admissions per 10,000 adolescents) in 2008 to 31 in 2017,â according to the CDC study.
While some states saw increases in admissions rates over that period, states that had the highest rates of treatment admissions all experienced declines. All three states on the West Coast, for example, had among the highest treatment admissions rates during the period studiedâbut also showed the steepest declines in admissions over that time. California, Oregon and Washington State have all legalized cannabis for adult-use.
âAll 12 states in the high mean admissions rate class sustained admissions declines,â the report says, âwith 10 of those states having declines in the steepest category (states colored darkest blue).â
Some statesâWisconsin, Indiana and South Carolinaâhad too much missing data to include in the report.
Whatâs behind the trends isnât immediately clear from the data. Mennis writes that possible causes for the declines, as well for the variation between states, âinclude changes in attitudes toward marijuana, as well as differences in marijuana use and incidence of CUD [cannabis use disorder], as well as in socioeconomic status, treatment availability, and health insurance.â
âWhatever the causes of the observed patterns,â the report says, âthis research suggests that a precipitious national decline in adolescent treatment admissions, particularly in states legalizing recreational marijuana use, is occurring simultaneously within a period of increased permissiveness, decreasing perception of harm, and increasing adult use.â
The findings generally align with past studies looking at teen marijuana use in legal states, which have found that youth consumption has remained steady or fallen even as the perception of harm caused by marijuana has decreased.
In a presentation to lawmakers in North Dakota this summer, the deputy coordinator for the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program’s National Marijuana Initiative, Dale Quigley, acknowledged that teen use was falling both nationally and in legal states.
“For some reason, the use rate among this age bracket is going down,” said Quigley, who lives in Colorado. “We’re not 100 percent sure why it’s going down. It’s a good thing that it’s going down, but we don’t understand why.”
Another study, released by Colorado officials in August, showed that youth cannabis consumption in the state âhas not significantly changed since legalizationâ in 2012.
A CDC report published the same month, meanwhile, found that cannabis use by high school students has fallen in recent years after an earlier increase. Youth lifetime marijuana use “increased during 2009â2013 and then decreased during 2013â2019,” the report found.
âWe are reassured by the latest results from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey because they show that youth marijuana use has not increased over the past decade, even as more states across the country have passed progressive marijuana laws,â Sheila Vakharia, deputy director of the department of research and academic engagement for the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement at the time.
Earlier studies looking at teen use rates after legalization have found similar declines or a lack of evidence of an increase.
Last year, for example, a study took data from Washington State and determined that declines in youth cannabis consumption could be explained by replacing the illicit market with regulations or the âloss of novelty appeal among youths.â
Another study from last year showed declining youth cannabis consumption in legalized states but didnât suggest possible explanations.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Business
Legal Marijuana States See Reduced Workers’ Compensation Claims, New Study Finds

Legalizing marijuana for adult use is associated with an increase in workforce productivity and decrease in workplace injuries, according to a new study partly funded by the federal government.
In a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers looked at the impact of recreational cannabis legalization on workersâ compensation claims among older adults. They found declines in such filings “both in terms of the propensity to receive benefits and benefit amount” in states that have enacted the policy change.
Further, they identified “complementary declines in non-traumatic workplace injury rates and the incidence of work-limiting disabilities” in legal states.
These findings run counter to arguments commonly made by prohibitionists, who have claimed that legalizing marijuana would lead to lower productivity and more occupational hazards and associated costs to businesses. In fact, the study indicates that regulating cannabis sales for adults is a workplace benefit by enabling older employees (40-62 years old) to access an alternative treatment option.
“We offer evidence that the primary driver of these reductions [in workers’ compensation] is an improvement in work capacity, likely due to access to an additional form of pain management therapy,” the study, which received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, states.
The implementation of adult-use legalization seems to “improve access to an additional channel for managing pain and other health conditions, suggesting potential benefits on populations at risk of workplace injuries,” it continues.
The study is based on an analysis of data on workers’ compensation benefit receipt and workers’ compensation income from
2010 to 2018 as reported in the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
“Our results show a decline in workers’ compensation benefit propensity of 0.18 percentage points, which corresponds to a 20 percent reduction in any workers’ compensation income, after states legalize marijuana for recreational use. Similarly, we find that annual income received from workers’ compensation declines by $21.98 (or 20.5%) post-[recreational marijuana legalization]. These results are not driven by pre-existing trends, and falsification exercises suggest that observing estimates of this magnitude is statistically rare.”
Researchers said that they’ve found evidence that cannabis use increases post-legalization among the age cohort they studied, but no such spike in misuse. Further, they found a decline in post-legalization prescriptions for medications used to treat chronic pain, indicating that some people are using marijuana as a substitute for traditional painkillers.
“We hypothesize that access to marijuana through [recreational marijuana laws] increases its medical use and, in turn, allows better management of symptoms that impede work capacityâe.g., chronic pain, insomnia, mental health problems, nausea, and so forth,” the study says. “Chronic pain management is likely to be particularly important in our context as this is the health condition most commonly reported among medical marijuana users.”
Beyond decreasing workers’ compensation claims and costs, legalization also is a boon to the economy by adding jobs in legal states.
The cannabis industry added more than 77,000 jobs over the past yearâa 32 percent increase that makes the sector the fastest in job creation compared to any other American industry, according to a report released by the cannabis company Leafly last week.
Starting A Business? Study Finds Marijuana May HelpâAnd Hinder
Business
Starting A Business? Study Finds Marijuana May HelpâAnd Hinder

A new study out of Washington State University suggests cannabis may inspire entrepreneurs to come up with big, bold business ideasâbut could also lead them down a rabbit hole of wishful thinking.
Researchers found that entrepreneurs who were frequent marijuana consumers came up with business pitches that were more original but less feasible, according to a panel of experts who scored the ideas.
âBeyond their innate creative aptitude, entrepreneurs may attempt to enhance their creativity,â says the study, which will appear in the March 2021 issue of the Journal of Business Venturing. âDespite generating more original ideas, we found that cannabis usersâ ideas were less feasible.â
Also important variables, the study found, were an entrepreneurâs passion, which may heighten creativity at the expense of feasibility, as well as their past entrepreneurial experience, which tended to increase idea feasibility but rein in creativity.
The findings âprovide insight into the creative benefits and detriments associated with being a cannabis user,â the study says, âsuggesting that cannabis usersâespecially those who are passionate about exploring new venture ideas or those with relatively little entrepreneurial experienceâmay benefit from non-usersâ insights to develop the feasibility of their ideas.â
To test the effects of marijuana on business-idea generation, researchers had 254 entrepreneurs come up with âas many new venture ideas as possibleâ based on virtual realityâa prompt provided by researchers. Participants had three minutes to generate ideas, then selected the idea they believed to be their best. Two âexpert ratersâ then evaluated the chosen pitches for originality and feasibility.
Reachers say their findings support one of the study’s core hypotheses: that there are differences between how cannabis users and non-users arrive at business ideas. âCannabis users are more impulsive, disinhibited, and better at identifying relationships among seemingly disparate concepts,â the study proposes. âHowever, these differences and cannabis usersâ diminished executive functioning likely detracts from idea feasibility.â
Notably, the researchers did not ask participants to consume marijuana in the study setting itself. Rather, to compare cannabis-users to non-users, researchers split participants into two groups: those who had used marijuana less than five times in their lives and never in the past month (non-users) and those whoâd consumed more than five times in their life and at least twice in the past month (users).
âUnlike alcohol, where health organizations have established standards for heavy drinking,â the study notes, âscholars have yet to reach a consensus on what constitutes a cannabis user versus a non-user.â
Because the study was merely observational, it also cannot determine whether marijuana use was in fact the cause of the differences between the two groupsâ ideas. It may be that some other trait or traits explain both a personâs idea generation and their decision to consume cannabis.
The studyâs cannabis user group comprised 120 people, or 47.2 percent of all participants. Researchers attempted to control for certain other factors, such as gender, age, education and technological familiarity.
While the findings suggest that, overall, cannabis can both inspire originality and limit feasibility, the outcomes were influenced strongly by what researchers described as âentrepreneurial passion for inventingâ as well as their âentrepreneurial experience.â
âCannabis usersâ diminished idea feasibility compared to non-users was significant in those with low entrepreneurial experience,â the studyâs authors wrote, âbut not in those with high entrepreneurial experience.â
Similarly, âcannabis usersâ lower idea feasibility was signifiant at high entrepreneurial passion for inventing but not low entrepreneurial passion for inventing,â the study found.
âEntrepreneurial passion for inventing appears to play a role in channeling cannabis users toward idea originality but away from idea feasibility,â it says. âConversely, entrepreneurial experience appears to attenuate the positive relationship of being a cannabis user with idea originality and its negative relationship with idea feasibility.â
As the study itself acknowledges, many successful business leaders and visionaries have credited the inspirational powers of cannabis. Apple luminary Steve Jobs, for example, ânoted that his use of cannabis helped him feel ârelaxed and creative.ââ (Biographer Walter Isaacson also quoted Jobs as saying another drug, LSD, was âone of the most important things in my life. ⊠It reinforced my sense of what was importantâcreating great things instead of making money.â)
On the other hand, researchers argue that cannabis use can be a double-edged sword. âRegular cannabis use is associated with numerous detrimental effects, such as the potential for dependence and addiction, risk of motor vehicle accidents, mental and respiratory health problems, as well as memory and other cognitive impairments.â
Benjamin Warnick, assistant professor at Washington State Universityâs Carson School of Business and lead author of the study, said in a press release that the research is âthe first study we know of that looks at how any kind of drug use influences new business ideation,â adding that âthere is still much to explore.â
âClearly there are pros and cons to using cannabis that deserve to be investigated further,â Warnick said. âAs the wave of cannabis legalization continues across the country, we need to shed light on the actual effects of cannabis not only in entrepreneurship but in other areas of business as well.â
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Photo courtesy of the Drug Policy Alliance, Sonya Yruel
Science & Health
Areas With More Marijuana Dispensaries Have Fewer Opioid Deaths, New Study Finds

Increasing access to marijuana dispensaries is associated with a significant reduction in opioid-related deaths, according to a new study.
“Higher medical and recreational storefront dispensary counts are associated with reduced opioid related death rates, particularly deaths associated with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl,” the paper, published on Wednesday in the British Medical Association journal’s BMJ, concluded.
It’s a finding that “holds for both medical and recreational dispensaries,” the study says.
Researchers looked at opioid mortality and cannabis dispensary prevalence in 23 U.S.states from 2014 to 2018 and found that, overall, counties where the number of legal marijuana shops increased from one to two experienced a 17 percent reduction in opioid-related fatalities.
Increasing the dispensary count from two to three was linked to an additional 8.5 percent decrease in opioid deaths.
Further, the study found that this trend “appeared particularly strong for deaths associated with synthetic opioids other than methadone, with an estimated 21 percent reduction in mortality rates associated with an increase from one to two dispensaries.”
“If consumers use cannabis and opioids for pain management, increasing the supply of legal cannabis might have implications for fentanyl demand and opioid related mortality rates overall.”
“While the associations documented cannot be assumed to be causal, they suggest a potential association between increased prevalence of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries and reduced opioid related mortality rates,” the researchers wrote. “This study highlights the importance of considering the complex supply side of related drug markets and how this shapes opioid use and misuse.”
This is far from the first piece of research to draw a connection between legal cannabis access and reduced harms from opioids. Multiple studies have found that marijuana effectively treats conditions like chronic pain for which opioids are regularly prescribed, and surveys show that many patients have substituted addictive painkillers with cannabis.
“Cannabis is generally thought to be a less addictive substance than opioids,” the new study says. “Cannabis can potentially be used medically for pain management and has considerable public support.”
“Given the alarming rise in the fentanyl based market in the US, and the increase in deaths involving fentanyl and its analogs in recent years, the question of how legal cannabis availability relates to opioid related deaths is particularly pressing.”
“Our findings suggest that increasing availability of legal cannabis (modeled through the presence of medical and recreational dispensary operations) is associated with a decrease in deaths associated with the T40.4 class of opioids, which include the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl,” it continues. “This finding is especially important because fentanyl related deaths have become the most common opioid related cause of death.”
Earlier this month, a separate study determined that medical cannabis use is associated with significant reductions in dependence on opioids and other prescription drugs, as well as an increase in quality of life.
These studies could also provide valuable context to a federal health agency in the U.S. that is conducting a review of studies to learn if marijuana and kratom could potentially treat chronic pain with fewer side effects than opioids.
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