Cannabis use is lower among Illinois teenagers who live near medical dispensaries

According to a new study, an Illinois teenager who lives in a zip code with a medicinal cannabis dispensary was less likely to have used marijuana.

The results, which came from researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, showed that “about 18.3% of youth living in Illinois zip codes with medical dispensaries reported using cannabis in the past year, compared with 22, 4% of those who lived there. “Zip codes exclude these businesses,” according to the Illinois News Bureau, a university intelligence service.

“Likewise, fewer students — 12% — with medicinal dispensaries in their zip code reported having used cannabis in the previous 30 days, compared with 15.6% of their peers who lived in other zip codes, the researchers found.” the researchers noted,” the Illinois News Bureau reported.

The results were based on the 2018 Illinois Youth Survey, a “biennial assessment by the university’s Center for Prevention Research and Development,” which included a sample of 10,560 young people in the state.

According to the news agency, the “anonymous survey [asked] Eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade students in schools across Illinois on various health and social issues, including their alcohol, tobacco, and drug use,” while the data was collected “between January and June 2018,” when 53 people used medicinal cannabis in the Pharmacies in the state were used. The survey was conducted before Illinois legalized recreational cannabis in January 2020.

“There’s good news, and there’s still reason to be cautious and continue to monitor things,” said Doug Smith, the director of the university’s Center for Prevention Research and Development, who is also a professor of social work and a substance use expert is in teenagers and young adults. “The good news is that there doesn’t seem to have been an immediate impact on substance use rates among adolescents in Illinois after medical dispensaries opened. In fact, we found that across the sample, those who lived in a zip code with a pharmacy were less likely to have used cannabis in the past 30 days or a year.”

Smith admitted the poll’s results required no obvious explanation.

“To be honest, it’s a mystery,” Smith said, as quoted by the news agency. “The only reason I can think of is that in 2018 there were only 53 pharmacies operating in the entire state of Illinois. It could be that the state simply did not have enough of these facilities at the time to see any impact.

“However, we must combat the hysteria that legalizing cannabis will have a huge and disruptive impact on youth in terms of substance use rates and prevalence,” Smith added. “That’s just not the case.”

The news bureau has more on the poll results:

“The average age of the students surveyed was 15 years. Most of the students in the sample were white (43%) or Latino (26%). Consistent with national data, cannabis use increased significantly as Illinois students progressed from eighth to twelfth grade, regardless of whether there was a pharmacy in their zip code, the researchers found. Most of the respondents – 47% – were from suburban Chicago, while 21% were from other cities, about 18% lived in rural areas, and 14% lived in the city of Chicago. About 32% of the Chicago youth in the study lived in ZIP codes that operated medical cannabis dispensaries, compared to 3.5% of those living in rural areas. According to the data, cannabis use was more common in more densely populated areas. Overall, 29% of students living in the city of Chicago reported using cannabis, compared to 19% of those living in the Chicago suburbs, 22% of students from other urban areas, and 19% of students from rural areas, the study found. “