Teenage Pot Problems Are On Decline: Report
A large survey in the United States has found that the actual number of teenagers with marijuana-related problems is on a decline. The decline has been prominent across a quarter of a million adolescents, despite decriminalization of medical marijuana in nearly 50 percent of the American states.
The survey, conducted by a team of researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis looked at the drug use trends among 216,000 teenagers aged between 12 and 17. The team discovered that the number of teenagers with pot-related problems declined by 24 percent between the years 2002 and 2013.
In the same survey, the team also discovered that the number of children confessing that they have used marijuana in the past 12 months also fell by almost 10 percent. The drops were real, as it were accompanied by a decline in marijuana-related behavioral problems such as shoplifting, drug selling and fighting.
The researchers believe that the two phenomena are connected - when teenagers are less likely to engage in a behavioral problem, they are also at a decreased risk of experiencing marijuana-related problems.
The team is not sure how marijuana legalization across states is affecting young people in the country. However, they believe that treatment during the young stage of life for behavioral problems make kids less likely to turn to marijuana during the teenage years. But, these behavioral issues are outweighing the effects of marijuana legalization across states.
Researchers further explained how the identification of psychiatric disorders early in life is a strong indicator of marijuana use later in life. Therefore, the team believes that if any sought of disruptive behavior is identified early in life, it could help deliver therapies that reduce the risk of having any drug- or alcohol-related problem during the teenage years.
The complete details of the study have been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry.
