Youth cannabis use falls in legalization states – challenging the case for Swedish drug policy

In the US states that have legalized cannabis for adults, youth use has not risen. It has in fact fallen, according to a compilation of state and national school surveys from the organization Marijuana Policy Project. Although Swedish zero tolerance warns that legalization will increase youth use, and although the aim of Swedish drug policy is a society free from drugs, the figures point in the opposite direction.

The goal is a society free from drugs

Sweden has held on to the ban on cannabis for adults. According to the ANDTS strategy that the Swedish parliament has endorsed, the overall aim of the policy is a society free from drugs and doping with reduced medical and social harm. In the debate, legalization has been dismissed with the argument that availability would increase use, not least among young people. It is that concern the American figures now put to the test.

In the US, use has fallen, not risen

According to the CDC school survey Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the share of American students who have used cannabis in the past 30 days has dropped from 23.1 percent in 2011 to 12.9 percent in 2025. The decline is seen in all grades: in ninth grade from 18 to 7.4 percent, in tenth grade from 21.6 to 11.9 percent, in eleventh grade from 25.5 to 15.2 percent and in twelfth grade from 28 to 18.1 percent.

Monitoring the Future, which has followed American school students since the 1970s, shows the same thing. Use in the past 30 days fell between 2011 and 2025 from 7.2 to 4 percent in eighth grade, from 17.6 to 9.4 percent in tenth grade and from 22.6 to 17.1 percent in twelfth grade. Use in the past year went from 12.5 to 7.6 percent in eighth grade and from 36.4 to 25.7 percent in twelfth grade.

The federal health agencies’ survey NSDUH also shows a decline for ages 12 to 17, from 10.9 percent in 2021 to 8.7 percent in 2025. The first legalization in two states took place in 2012.

NIDA director: no link to increased use

The compilation opens with a quote from Nora Volkow, director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIDA, from a Senate hearing in 2022: that legalization in states has not been associated with increased cannabis use among young people. According to the studies the compilation refers to, there is also no support for legalization having encouraged youth use. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association is based on data from more than 207,000 high school students up to 2021, and according to another publication in the same journal from 2024, each additional year of legalization increased the probability that young people do not use cannabis at all by 8 percent.

Fewer say cannabis is easy to get hold of

Availability has also changed. The share of students who say cannabis is “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get hold of has, according to Monitoring the Future, fallen from 37.9 to 19.9 percent in eighth grade, from 68.4 to 40.2 percent in tenth grade and from 82.2 to 65.2 percent in twelfth grade between 2011 and 2025 – even though cannabis has become legal for adults in more and more states.

This is how it looks in individual states

In Washington, where the law took effect in 2012, the share of eighth graders who used cannabis in the past 30 days has fallen from 9.5 percent in 2010 to 2.6 percent in 2025. In Colorado, the share of high school students has gone from 22 percent in 2011 to 9.7 percent in 2025. In Oregon, the share of eighth graders has fallen from 9.7 percent in 2013 to 1.7 percent in 2025, and in Illinois from 20.8 percent in 2017 to 8.2 percent in 2025. In Arizona, the share of twelfth graders has fallen from 23.2 percent in 2018 to 10.2 percent in 2026, and in Montana the share of high school students has gone from 21.1 percent in 2019 to 13.3 percent in 2025.

Source

Adult Use Legalization Corresponds With Drop In Teen Marijuana Use, Marijuana Policy Project

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