When Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales four years ago, critics predicted it would ignite an increase in teens smoking weed. Hasn't happened.About 20% of Colorado's teens say they smoked marijuana in the past 30 days, according to a statewide survey. That's about the same as in 2012, when the law was passed. It's also down from the roughly 25% of teens who used marijuana before legalization.
More than three quarters of Colorado teens say they simply never use marijuana, according to the survey.
The numbers are from a large random poll of 17,000 Colorado middle school and high school students by the state health department. The results were reported by The Washington Post.
Colorado's experience is being closely watched in Washington, which also legalized recreational marijuana in 2012. The figures are also of intense interest in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C., that followed suit in 2014. Also keeping a close eye on teen marijuana experience are a handful of states where legalized marijuana is being debated in the legislatures or will be on the ballot this year. Those states include: Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
An earlier version of this article's headline had a grammatical error, we apologize, our regular afternoon news editor is out of town and left behind a slacker in charge.
