Marijuana policy has gone to pot: Legal cannabis has created many new problems

It seems obvious: When society puts its stamp of approval on today’s high-potency marijuana, more kids will start using it. But legalization advocates claim otherwise, asserting that by legalizing marijuana we can better regulate it and keep it out of the hands of kids.

If only that were true.

As we’ve seen firsthand with the rollout of legalization in New York, the industry is underregulated and has been met with the rapid expansion of the black market. Officials estimate that 1,400 illegal marijuana shops have popped up in New York City alone — an outcome that followed the legalization of the drug, which gave shops cover to operate.

Legalization has certainly expanded New York City’s black market. Dealers who once operated in back alleys still do that, but many have set up illegal “shop” to augment their delivery and other businesses.

Even state Sen. Liz Krueger, who authored the bill to legalize marijuana statewide, described New York’s situation as “the wild, wild West.”

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. But there’s another warning we should heed: As the supply of marijuana goes up, so too do usage and addiction rates, particularly among youth.

Reports of drugs being found on students at school in New York are up 8%, compared to 2019, even though enrollment has declined 11%, Chalkbeat found. “The legal landscape and market for the drug have shifted rapidly,” they explained, “making it easier for young people to get more potent cannabis products they can use discreetly before or during school.”

Where do you think these kids got their marijuana? If you guessed one of the 1,400 shops, you’d probably be right.

Compounding the issue is the fact that law enforcement officials are unable to crack down on stores that sell to minors. They can only issue $250 fines to those who sell without a license, illustrating why the negligible fines have failed to serve as a deterrent against illicit sellers.

Given that enforcement efforts against the black market have fallen flat, there is no foreseeable end to the sellers that emerged following legalization. This means youth will continue being able to obtain and use marijuana easily –– including during school.

These shops — which have marijuana products and cash inside — have also become targets for criminals, worsening the city’s crime wave. “Smoke shops have been hot spots for robberies of late,” the Daily News reported last month. And according to numbers from the NYPD, there has been “nearly one robbery for every two smoke shops.”

Proponents assured the public that legalization would displace the illicit market and thereby prevent marijuana products from falling into the hands of youth. However, as we’ve seen in New York and other states that served as a cautionary tale, it has resulted in the opposite. The state must now grapple with an out-of-control black market and the subsequent outgrowth of unlicensed sellers who will not hesitate to sell to minors.

If politicians in Albany had followed the science, as they urged all of us to do throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, they would have known that their attempts to legalize marijuana were ill-advised.

Even if the state reins in the black market — which may very likely result in more arrests and harken back the criminal justice posture it sought to shift away from — the new legal framework for marijuana will still be associated with higher rates of youth use. For instance, one recently published study looked at almost 22,000 kids and found that youth in states with legal marijuana were more likely to use the drug than youth in non-legal states.

When legalization happens, the perception that today’s pot is dangerous goes down. Even the pro-legalization Cato Institute found, “all states that have legalized marijuana fall below the average U.S. risk perception.” This has translated to higher use rates.

Youth use marijuana differently and are affected by marijuana differently. Developing brains are particularly susceptible to both short- and long-term negative repercussions. A 2022 study found that youth marijuana users are more likely to have severe marijuana addiction (what researchers call “cannabis use disorder,” or CUD) and are more likely to have greater psychotic-like symptoms than adult marijuana users.

Why does this matter? Minors are especially vulnerable to the negative effects of marijuana use. Young users have demonstrated changes in gray matter volume, indicating negative consequences for brain development. Chronic adolescent marijuana use has been correlated with cognitive impairment and worsened academic or work performance.

A 2022 study found that adolescent users of marijuana lost an average of 5.5 IQ points in adulthood, compared to an average loss of 0.7 points among lifelong non-users. One study found that marijuana was the most common substance found in post-mortem toxicologies of youth suicide decedents. Additionally, a 2021 study found that poly-substance use, including marijuana, was associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety, and lower grade point averages.

Part of this exposure — and the impact it has on kids — comes from increased commercialization, like we are seeing in New York. Weed promotion is everywhere. One study in Oregon found half of high school juniors report being exposed to online marijuana advertisements in the past 30 days. Another study found that one in three youth living in a state where marijuana is “legal” engaged with marijuana promotions on social media, and youth who engaged with marijuana promotions were five times as likely to use marijuana.

What about national numbers? The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey asked kids about daily marijuana use and found that it increased dramatically from 2018 to 2019 — among eighth graders, use rates jumped 85.7% from 2018 to 2019. By 2019, they found that marijuana use in the past 12 months and in the last 30 days had reached the highest levels ever reported.

But then COVID hit. Kids weren’t around friends or at school as much. Parents weren’t at the office. And a natural experiment about access and availability unfolded. And indeed, what happened is what many thought would happen: drug use and initiation fell dramatically during the pandemic among teens.

According to the Monitoring the Future Survey the percentage of 10th graders who thought it was “fairly easy or very easy” to get marijuana declined from 65.8% in 2019 to 47.5% in 2021. Among 12th graders, the percentage declined from 78.0% in 2019 to 69.6% in 2021. For context, these declines are comparable to the gains of the prior 15–20 years of prevention efforts. Prior to the pandemic, these answers would annually fluctuate one or two percentage points; the pandemic made the task of obtaining drugs much more difficult.

After schools transitioned to online learning options, many students lost in-person access to their primary source of drugs: their peers. Students could no longer buy it at school or get it through their friend group, which is where kids usually get drugs (not from shady dealers).

Similarly, youth were no longer surrounded by peers who could pressure them to use marijuana. Some kids may have smoked it, thinking it would make them look cool, while others may have used it at a party because they didn’t want to feel left out. They were less likely to adopt the attitude, “well, everyone else is using it,” when they were not exposed to others using it. At home, away from their social groups, students felt less pressure to use marijuana.

As students were spending significantly less time at school with their friends, they were also spending more time at home with their parents. Parental disapproval is a key protective factor against youth use. In 2020, 88.1% of 12–17-year-olds said their parents would “strongly disapprove” of their using marijuana once a month or more. Recognizing that their parents disapprove of their use, many youth were unable to use marijuana at home — and they were not going to events where it could have been used.

Going forward, we must apply these lessons to efforts that will prevent future drug use. This doesn’t mean we shut down society and discourage lasting friendships. Instead, we should invest in efforts that reduce the availability of marijuana, encourage parents to monitor their child for potential marijuana use, and teach children the importance of being drug-free.

Those who perceive marijuana as being available are five times more likely to use it than those who think it is unavailable. This should make intuitive sense — you cannot use something you are unable to get. Thus, an effective means of deterrence against use includes making it more difficult to obtain marijuana. We must also focus on international cooperation and preventing drugs from entering our nation. With fewer drugs circulating through a community, fewer students will use them.

As we emerge from the pandemic, we should analyze its effects like controlled variables in an experiment. When students entered an environment where use was not normalized, they were less able to obtain marijuana. And when they were under the supervision of their parents, they were less able to use any drugs they had obtained. We should learn from this, and renew our efforts to keep drugs out of our communities and empower parents and youth to lead healthy, drug-free lives. That phrase may sound old fashioned — but it’s the right thing to do.

Sabet served in three White House administrations and is now the president and CEO of SAM, Smart Approaches to Marijuana.