The Dalgarno institute has long posited the consumption principle that, accessibility, acceptability, and availability all increase consumption, and our 2014 published paper warning of such has proven accurate.
With the misanthropic experiment of cannabis use normalisation and legalisation underway in parts of the United States, Uruguay and Canada, we are now able to better measure the extent of impact. Most research in this arena is still very new and limited, as this social experiment is still in early stages.
Australian Professor John Toumbourou and his Deakin University team in the course of their decade long longitudinal studies of comparison with US and Australian youth investigated the impact of such permission models and found that, “Cannabis legalization is associated with increased risk factors – availability, perceived prevalence, acceptability – leading to increased frequency of use (along with increased potency), increased adult use and similar long term harms.”
Smart Approaches to Marijuana in their “Lessons Learned from State Marijuana Legalization”, saw not only increasing harms from increasing use, but that use amongst 8th, 10th and 12th Graders had increased approximately 40%
Further to that a recently published research in the US only confirms these emerging and public health harming realities.
Effects of Recreational Marijuana Legalization on College Students: A Longitudinal Study of Attitudes, Intentions, and Use Behaviors.
Purpose: As legal recreational marijuana use expands rapidly across the U.S., there is growing concern that this will lead to higher rates of use among college-aged young adults. Given the limited research addressing this issue, a longitudinal study was conducted to evaluate the effects of legalizing recreational use on the attitudes, intentions, and marijuana use behaviors of college students in two different legalization contexts, Washington State and Wisconsin.
Results: Ever use, attitude, and intention-to-use scores did not change significantly more in Washington after legalization than in Wisconsin. However, among prior users, the proportion using in the last 28 days rose faster in Washington after legalization that it did in Wisconsin (p < .001).
Conclusions: The findings suggest that legalization had the greatest effects on current marijuana users, who are surrounded by a climate that is increasingly supportive of its use.
For complete research Published: May 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.03.039
Research Team – Dalgarno Institute