Marijuana use rates in 12-17 year olds is highest in medical marijuana states

The ONDCP twitter account just posted a very interesting graph on past-month marijuana use rates in the 12-17 year old adolescent population.

This dovetails very nicely with a factoid being twittered today in the #MTF2013 hashtag which is covering the release of the mid-term data from the Monitoring the Future project.

In 2012 & 2013, 34% of 12th-graders who smoke marijuana in states w/med. pot laws report obtaining the drug is through someone's Rx #MTF2013

— NIDAnews (@NIDAnews) December 18, 2013

this actually surprised me. That it was so low.

Based on report from teens in my neighborhood, surprised it is *only* 34% getting their marijuana via someone's Rx for #MM #MTF2013

— Drug Monkey (@drugmonkeyblog) December 18, 2013

Of course, one’s first suspicion is that states which are liberal enough to pass medical marijuana laws might have adolescent populations that are more likely to smoke marijuana anyway, i.e., regardless of the medical legalization. Be nice to see a workup on teen marijuana use in these states before and after they legalized medical marijuana.