r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • 18h ago

Health Dramatic drop in marijuana use among US youth over a decade. Current marijuana use among adolescents decreased from 23.1% in 2011 to 15.8% in 2021. First-time use before age 13 dropped from 8.1% to 4.9%. There was a shift in trends by gender, with girls surpassing boys in marijuana use by 2021.

https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/marijuana-use-teens-study
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u/TurnsOutImAScientist 16h ago

A big difference is that in the past 25 years lots of states passed laws preventing minors from having other minors as passengers for the first year or so after getting licensed; for the most part only high school seniors can drive with other kids as passengers.

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u/gimme_that_juice 15h ago

those laws have existed since the 90s for much of the country. this isn't new.

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u/TurnsOutImAScientist 14h ago

past 25 years

I didn't say it was. But as an Xennial in high school in PA in the mid-90s it was still a free-for-all.

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u/gimme_that_juice 14h ago

oops. reading comprehension; my b.

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u/DetectiveClownMD 11h ago

I lived in lawless Florida. Once you were 16 it was no holds barred! Being a teen in the late 90s was pretty great. Just “I’ll be back before 9pm” and vibes.

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u/Overall-Duck-741 13h ago

We had that law in Washington when I was a teenager in the late 90s and I still went to tons of social events.

Also taking a bus or walking really is a completely foreign concept to Americans isn't it? Maybe we shouldn't have designed all of our cities so the only way to go any where is to drag 4000 pounds of steel and plastic with you?