Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM) Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press Contact: http://www.abqjournal.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10 STUDY: MEDICAL POT LAWS DON'T BOOST TOKING In Fact, Fewer 8th-Graders in States With Such Laws Smoke Marijuana NEW YORK (AP) - Medical marijuana laws don't trigger an increase in teen pot smoking, a new study concludes. Some opponents have said that legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana could tell young people that smoking pot is no big deal, and encourage them to experiment. Pot smoking by teens has been increasing and earlier research has shown that fewer of them see marijuana as risky. But the new study suggests that medical marijuana laws are not the reason, with no significant increase in 21 states with medical marijuana laws. "Our findings provide the strongest evidence to date that marijuana use by teenagers does not increase after a state legalizes medical marijuana," lead author Deborah Hasin, a researcher at Columbia University in New York, said in a statement. The study is based on an ongoing government-funded survey of 8th-, 10th- and 12th-graders that asks about marijuana use in the previous month. The researchers reviewed responses from more than 1 million students in 48 states, from 1991 through 2014. They found that marijuana use tended to be higher already in states that went on to adopt medical marijuana laws, but there was no additional spike after the law was passed. In fact, the researchers saw a decline in marijuana use by 8th-graders in those states, perhaps because the laws caused 8th-graders to be less likely to think of pot as a recreational drug, they said. Or it's possible some parents worked harder to stop kids from trying it, they added. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom