One of the worst effects of widespread marijuana legalization is widespread marijuana normalization. The message has clearly gotten out that this drug is somehow safe or OK (or even helpful). And that is hurting America’s kids and teenagers. Youth and adolescence is an impressionable time; seeing legal medical and even recreational weed is bound to portray the drug inocrrectly.

Increases in marijuana potency and commercialization have been disastrous for youth nationwide. Marijuana use among young people can cause severe mental health issues, as the human brain continues to develop up until the age of 25. 

It’s not just youth and teenagers who are impacted by marijuana legalization; cannabis poisonings among young children have skyrocketed since marijuana was legalized in states nationwide. 

This deep dive is designed to help non-experts answer questions they might face from industry advocates or community members who are unfamiliar with the risks of youth marijuana use and the effects that marijuana legalization has on young people overall.

The Basics

Marijuana Use Among Youth Data

Marijuana use among youth is linked to a myriad of issues, including decreases in IQ and a wide range of mental health issues. 

• Adolescent marijuana use is linked to permanent changes in one’s brain, including a decrease in up to 8 IQ points and an increase in the odds of developing depression and anxiety.
• A 2024 study published in the journal Psychological Medicine found that teens who use marijuana face an 11 times higher risk of developing a psychotic disorder compared to non-users.

Alongside these mental issues, we know that marijuana use in youth is linked to increased rates of marijuana use disorder.

• People who use marijuana before age 18 are up to seven times more likely to develop marijuana use disorder.
• In states where marijuana is legalized, the rate of marijuana use disorder among young people grew 25% faster than in states without recreational marijuana legalization.
• Recent data has shown that marijuana legalization has led to a youth marijuana crisis. Nine out of 10 states with the highest youth marijuana use rate are states where marijuana is legal.

Colorado, which was one of the first states to legalize marijuana, has been a state where this crisis has hit youth the hardest.

• In Colorado, marijuana is the most commonly found substance in the toxicology reports of youth aged 10-19 who commit suicide.
• In fact, 43% of Colorado teens aged 15-19 who commit suicide test positive for THC in their system. That figure rises to 49% for Hispanic youth and 67% for African American youth.

As for claims that legalization for adults does not increase youth use, the data flatly contradict them.

• Per estimates from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, average levels of marijuana use among under-18s is higher in states with legal marijuana for adults.
• That same data shows that nine out of 10 of the states with the highest levels of marijuana use prevalnce among 12 to 17-year-olds have legal recreational marijuana.
• University of Michigan research has shown that since 1994, the percentage of high-school students who associate great risk with regular marijuana usage has dropped from 71.3 to 35.9.

Make no mistake, marijuana legalization, commercialization, and normalization will continue to harm the youth of this country if action is not taken. And don’t believe industry advocates who tell you otherwise.

VIDEO: What are the legalizers lying about?

Marijuana-related poisonings 

Marijuana legalization has not just impacted young adults. It’s hurting younger children who are attracted to the kid-friendly packaging and delivery systems of marijuana products, like gummies and cookies. The rise is stark and dramatic.

• In 2009, there were 930 cases of marijuana-related incidents reported to poison control centers. In 2024, there were more than 22,000.
• Some 75% of these incidents involved children and teens.

One medical professional quoted in a New York Times story on the issue puts it very succinctly:

I definitely have seen floridly psychotic 2-year-olds just waiting for the marijuana to leave their system because they got into someone’s gummies, said Dr. Shamieka Virella Dixon, a pediatrician at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, N.C.

There’s also abundant testimony from affected people themselves about the catastrophic danger weed poses to adolescents.

VIDEO: A First-Person Account of What Weed Did to a Teen 

Diving Deeper

The basic data here are beyond worrying: They tell a story of increased addiction among teens, above all in states with legal weed programs, alongside what can only be described as a public-health crisis around accidental poisonings of children thanks to the aggressive marketing efforts from the industry. The articles below explore these themes in greater detail. 

Newsweek: “Don’t Downplay the Risks of Rising Teen Marijuana Use (Dr. Kevin Sabet). Dr. Sabet, the President and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, discusses in this Newsweek article the rise in marijuana use among youth and the associated risks.

Marijuana use has also skyrocketed among young adults. College-aged youth in particular are seeing historic levels of use, with almost half having used marijuana in the past year—the highest levels recorded since the 1980s. Even the pro-legalization Cato Institute recently acknowledged that, “All states that have legalized marijuana fall below the average U.S. risk perception,” which has resulted in more youth in those states using the drug. Today more than 15 million Americans report using marijuana daily, up from 6 million in 2009 and 900,000 in 1992.

The Hill: “The real youth drug crisis is marijuana (Dr. Kevin Sabet). In this article, Dr. Sabet discusses the growing drug crisis in the country, which is teen marijuana use. Dr. Sabet presents different data and research findings that show how marijuana legalization has been disastrous for young Americans.

The prevalence of youth-friendly delivery systems makes prevention pushes all the more urgent. In April, Canadian researchers published a study showing that provinces where edibles and extracts were legalized saw a 26 percent increase in overall teen marijuana use.

New York Times: “Cannabis Poisonings Are Rising, Mostly Among Kids” (Danielle Ivory, Julie Tate, and Megan Twohey). This article from the New York Times covers the rise in cannabis poisoning cases among young children in the United States. Doctors from across the country with firsthand experience of this crisis are interviewed, often sharing horror stories of children needing ventilators because of their poisoning.

As legalization and commercialization of cannabis have spread across the United States, making marijuana edibles more readily available, the number of cannabis-related incidents reported to poison control centers has sharply increased . . . But in interviews, emergency physicians, pediatricians, toxicologists and other doctors expressed concern about the growing public perception that T.H.C., the intoxicating component in cannabis, is completely safe.

Long Reads

To get an even clearer picture of the harms weed does to kids and teens, there are other important, longer form resoruces we wanted to surface.

The Impact of THC on Our Children: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare is a collection of stories from parents whose children have experienced cannabis-induced psychosis and who want to help other parents navigate the world of high-potency marijuana, which often ends up in the hands of youth in this country. The book is published by Johnny’s Ambassadors Youth THC Prevention, an organization founded by Laura Stack, who lost her son Johnny after he took his own life following a marijuana-induced psychotic episode.

Nondisordered Cannabis Use Among US Adolescents: This massive 2023 study from researchers at Columbia and the New York State Psychiatric Institute shows that even casual use of marijuana–i.e., use that does not meet the definition of a substance abuse disorder–has catastrophic mental health consequences. Specifically, the researchers found that non-disordered users had a two- to four-fold greater risk of “all adverse psychosocial events.”  That list includes not only depression and suicidal ideation, but also things like truancy, aggressive behavior, and arrest.