Citation

Ryan S. Pediatrics 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Penn State Children's Hospital, Hershey, Pennsylvania sryan4@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

10.1542/peds.2019-1256

PMID

31451611

Abstract

In 1996, the state of California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana. Since then, the landscape has changed dramatically regarding the legalization of both recreational and medicinal marijuana. Currently, 10 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana and 31 states have legalized medicinal forms of marijuana. In the wake of these state-level changes, clinicians, public health providers, and health policy planners have raised concern that greater availability and use of marijuana by adults along with decreased perception about the harms of marijuana use by adolescents will result in higher use rates and adverse consequences among adolescents. Thus far, these concerns have not fully materialized. Although rates of marijuana use among adolescents have remained relatively stable over the past 5 years, rates are still persistently high, with 5.8% of high school seniors reporting daily use of marijuana. This is in contrast with declining rates of other substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription opioids.

The United States is also currently experiencing an unprecedented increase in the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) …

Language: en