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Adolescent Marijuana Use, Marijuana-Related Perceptions, and Use of Other Substances Before and After Initiation of Retail Marijuana Sales in Colorado (2013–2015)

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Abstract

Due to the recentness of changes to marijuana policies in a number of states, the effect on adolescent use and perceptions is not yet well understood. This study examines change in adolescent marijuana use and related perceptions in Colorado, before and after the implementation of legal commercial sale of recreational marijuana for adults starting on January 1, 2014. The data are from a repeated cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of Colorado high school students, with separately drawn samples surveyed in fall 2013 (prior to implementation) and fall 2015 (18 months after implementation). We examined change in the prevalence of adolescent marijuana use, measured by lifetime use, past 30-day use, frequent use, and use on school property. To consider the possibility of heterogeneity in the change in marijuana use, we examined change in past 30-day marijuana use by demographic characteristics (sex, grade, race/ethnicity), school characteristics (poverty, percent minority), urbanicity of the school district, and whether the city or county permitted retail marijuana stores. There was an absence of significant effects for change in lifetime or past 30-day marijuana use. Among those reporting past 30-day use, frequent use and use on school property declined. There was a significant decline in the perceived harm associated with marijuana use, but we did not find a significant effect for perceived wrongfulness, perceived ease of access, or perceived parental disapproval. We did not find significant variability in past 30-day use by demographic characteristics or by school and community factors from 2013 to 2015. We did not find a significant effect associated with the introduction of legal sales of recreational marijuana to adults in Colorado on adolescent (illegal) use, but ongoing monitoring is warranted, including consideration of heterogeneity in the effects of marijuana policies.

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Funding

Data used for this study were collected under contracts with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE; Arnold H. Levinson and Ashley Brooks-Russell, principal investigators). This work was supported by several National Institutes of Health grants (K01DA031738l, Johnson; T32DA007292, Goodell).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community and Behavioral Health, Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, 13001 E. 17th Place B119, Bldg 500, Aurora, CO, 80045, USA

    Ashley Brooks-Russell, Ming Ma & Arnold H. Levinson

  2. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Denver, CO, USA

    Leo Kattari

  3. College of Global Health, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Tom Kirchner

  4. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Erin M. Anderson Goodell & Renee M. Johnson

Authors
  1. Ashley Brooks-Russell
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  2. Ming Ma
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  3. Arnold H. Levinson
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  4. Leo Kattari
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  5. Tom Kirchner
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  6. Erin M. Anderson Goodell
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  7. Renee M. Johnson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ashley Brooks-Russell.

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The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the official views of the NIH.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was approved by the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

The data collection for this study was approved as exempt, which included a waiver of written parental consent and student assent. Student participation in data collection was voluntary and no personal identifiers were collected. Parents were notified in writing at least 2 weeks in advance of data collection and could opt out their child from data collection. Students were instructed that they could skip questions or chose not to complete the survey.

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Brooks-Russell, A., Ma, M., Levinson, A.H. et al. Adolescent Marijuana Use, Marijuana-Related Perceptions, and Use of Other Substances Before and After Initiation of Retail Marijuana Sales in Colorado (2013–2015). Prev Sci 20, 185–193 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-018-0933-2

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