Legal cannabis doesn't spike teen hospitalizations for addiction

This large-scale study examined whether legalizing recreational cannabis at the state level increased hospitalizations of adolescents (ages 10-17) diagnosed with cannabis use disorder (CUD) between 2008 and 2020. Researchers analyzed over 2.8 million inpatient discharge records across 13 U.S. states with different legalization timelines, using advanced statistical methods to account for differences between states. The key finding: legalization was not associated with a statistically significant increase in adolescent CUD-related hospitalizations overall, with only a 0.51 percentage point rise observed when comparing before and after legalization periods.

The study did find one notable exception—a statistically significant increase in hospitalized CUD cases appeared in year seven after legalization in the earliest-adopting states, though this pattern didn't hold consistently across states that legalized later. The researchers tested multiple scenarios, including measuring effects from when dispensaries actually opened versus legalization dates, and the overall conclusion remained robust: no clear link between legalization and adolescent CUD hospitalizations emerged across the full observation period. Importantly, no significant differences were found when analyzing by sex, age, race/ethnicity, or urban versus rural location.

While these findings suggest legalization hasn't driven a dramatic spike in adolescent cannabis use disorder severe enough to require hospitalization, researchers emphasized that longer follow-up periods may reveal delayed effects, and the data doesn't account for milder cases treated outside hospitals. The results contribute important evidence to the ongoing debate about legalization's health impacts on young people, showing that at least for severe, hospitalization-level cannabis use disorder, the fears of an immediate adolescent CUD epidemic haven't materialized."