What about the children?

So, one of the big pieces of recent news was this:
Teen Marijuana Use Not Linked to Later Depression, Lung Cancer, Other Health Problems, Research Finds

Chronic marijuana use by teenage boys does not appear to be linked to later physical or mental health issues such as depression, psychotic symptoms or asthma, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Rutgers University tracked 408 males from adolescence into their mid-30s for the study, which was published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors®.

“What we found was a little surprising,” said lead researcher Jordan Bechtold, PhD, a psychology research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence.”

This, of course, is the best kind of research, as it actually tracked young people over the course of many years, and controlled for other factors such as cigarette smoking, health insurance, etc. (Note: in this particular study, only boys were tracked.)

For years, now, the federal government, led by science-impaired NIDA, plus all the prohibitionists, have claimed that we can’t consider legalizing marijuana for adults because it will inevitably mean more use by teens, leading to all sorts of damage.

Of course the actual truth is that there is no evidence that legalization for adults results in increased use by teens, and now this study shows that the purported dangers of teen use are dramatically overstated.

The same thing happened with the Chicken Little claims of highways devastated by stoned drivers.

Of course, as some of our commenters have pointed out, this is no surprise to us.

It’s just another variant of “where are the bodies?”

Teens have been smoking pot for a very long time, and there should be hard and obvious evidence of the negative impact by now, if the danger was anywhere near what was claimed.

Oh, and by the way, here’s the amazing thing — the Daily Mail actually covered this!