Atlanta, GA: The self-reported use of marijuana by young people in Colorado is largely unchanged in the years following the enactment of adult use legalization, and remains slightly below the national average, according to federal data provided.
According to the latest edition of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the percentage of high school students who acknowledge having used cannabis in the past 30 days fell 11 percent between the years 2011 and 2017, and remains just below the national average. The percentage of high-schoolers reporting having ever tried marijuana also fell 11 percent during this period.
The CDC data is consistent with various other data sets finding that neither the enactment of medical cannabis legalization nor the passage of adult use regulation is associated with significant upticks in marijuana use or access among young people.
For more information, contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. NORML’s fact-sheet, “Marijuana regulation and teen use rates,” is online.