Worried church mothers, get ready to think of the children.

Men and women under 21 years old are smoking marijuana because they can't drink legally, new data from the Journal of Health Economics suggests. Findings imply that, as soon as young people come of age, they ditch the weed and take up alcohol instead.

For those under 21, marijuana could simply be the most accessible of the substances, but according to a University of Illinois study, Americans drastically switch from smoking marijuana to consuming booze when they change from 20 years and 11 months old to the legal drinking age.

Researchers analyzed five years of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, along with responses from survey participants between the ages of 18 to 24 who recounted the number of times they'd consumed alcohol or used marijuana over the past 30 days. The likelihood that they had consumed alcohol within 30 days jumped by 16 percent, while pot use fell by 10 percent.

Researchers regard the findings as essential to the debate over how to regulate the substances, how marijuana laws are enforced will ultimately affect alcohol use, and the other way around according to Ben Crost, a co-author of the study,

"If you think alcohol is much more harmful to people's health, then you should probably restrict alcohol use," Crost said in a statement. "If you think marijuana is more harmful, then you might want to consider loosening the restrictions for alcohol."

Crost suggests officials should reassess the minimum legal drinking age, noting restrictions on booze appear to push young adults towards illegal drugs.Or maybe weed doesn't need to be illegal.

Next:

What it's like to smoke weed everyday for 50 years.

Is smoking weed addictive?

How much each state loves weed.

[H href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/08/people-substitute-marijuana-for-alcohol-at-age-21-study-says/' target='_blank">Washington Post']



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