Rates of school disciplinary incidents involving cannabis fell in Massachusetts following the adoption of regulated marijuana access, according to state-specific data published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Investigators affiliated with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health assessed trends in cannabis-related disciplinary incidents in Massachusetts public schools following marijuana medicalization and adult-use legalization.
Researchers identified “statistically significant decreases in CDIs [cannabis-related disciplinary incidents] after both medical and recreational legalization.” This decrease marked a reversal from prior years’ trends, when CDIs had steadily increased.
“As state cannabis legalization policies expanded, the cannabis-related disciplinary incident rate per 1,000 students decreased,” the study’s authors concluded. “Findings … suggest that more permissive cannabis policies [for adults] are not associated with a long-term risk for increased CDIs among youth.”
Following legalization of the adult-use cannabis market, marijuana use by Massachusetts teens fell by approximately 25 percent, according to annual data provided by the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Nationwide, cannabis use by young people has declined over the past decade to near historic lows.
“These findings reinforce the reality that regulated markets more successfully keep cannabis out of the hands of young people and out of school settings than does prohibition,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. Compliance checks from licensed retailers in legal cannabis states seldom if ever identify incidents of state-regulated stores selling cannabis products to patrons lacking proper age verification.
Massachusetts is one of several states where prohibitionists are seeking to repeal voter-approved marijuana legalization laws. Last month, representatives of the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission announced that they were permitting petitioners’ anti-marijuana initiative effort to move forward despite claims that signature gatherers misled some voters into signing it. According to one recent poll, nearly half of Massachusetts voters who signed the petition now say they would have refused to do so had they better understood its intentions.
An abstract of the study, “Association between evolving cannabis policies and cannabis-related school discipline among secondary school students in Massachusetts, 2005-2019,” appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Additional information is available from the NORML Fact Sheet, ‘Marijuana Regulation and Teen Use Rates.’
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