UMass Amherst Study Finds High School Students No More Likely to Use Marijuana After Legalization
AMHERST, Mass. – Highschoolers who perceive that their parents, siblings or friends use marijuana were much more likely to use marijuana themselves – but no more so after cannabis was legalized in the commonwealth in 2016, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research. “It’s not news that youth are influenced by peers,” says Faith English, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and lead author of a paper published in a special issue of Clinical Therapeutics that discusses critical opportunities of cannabis legalization. “But our paper was really the first to look at these three particular roles within a person’s social network and then look at changes from pre- to post-legalization. It was really quite novel.” While perceived marijuana use by family and friends was known to be a risk factor for adolescent marijuana use, English and senior author and injury prevention researcher Jennifer Whitehill, associate professor of health policy and man...