A common worry amongst those who support marijuana prohibition is that states which legalize the use of cannabis ( even including medical laws) will see an increase in usage. This has been paraded around by the likes of Kevin Sabet and other marijuana prohibitionists. However a new study from The Lancet has virtually obliterated the notion that there is a correlation between youth usage rates and the legality of cannabis as a drug which can be used medicinally.

“Our findings, consistent with previous evidence, suggest that passage of state medical marijuana laws does not increase adolescent use of marijuana,” researchers wrote. “Our study findings suggest that the debate over the role of medical marijuana laws in adolescent marijuana use should cease, and that resources should be applied to identifying the factors that do affect risk.” source

Believe it or not the study was funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, and it was no small feat. It encapsulates over two decades of research and more than 1 million eighth graders.

Dr. Deborah Hasin a researcher at Columbia University who took part in the study stated that.

“Our findings provide the strongest evidence to date that marijuana use by teenagers does not increase after a state legalizes medical marijuana. Rather, up to now, in the states that passed medical marijuana laws, adolescent marijuana use was already higher than in other states. Because early adolescent use of marijuana can lead to many long-term harmful outcomes, identifying the factors that actually play a role in adolescent use should be a high research priority.”

The final nails of the nearly century long misinformation campaign of marijuana prohibitionists is finally being driven into the coffin. It’s only a matter of time before the archaic views about marijuana use are put to rest. In the last five years the Lancet study confirmed the results of two others from the CDC as well as the Journal of Adolescent Health. Both of which showed no correlation between youth usage rates and the legality of Cannabis.

It’s fantastic that finally real scientific inquiry is putting a lot of the old myths about marijuana to rest. As we move forward we can be rest assured that while there is still a lot of misinformation being propagated, we’re on the right side of history. And we will be victorious!