ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2022
Does recreational cannabis legalization change cannabis use patterns? Evidence from secondary school students in Uruguay.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The clouded debate: A systematic review of comparative longitudinal studies examining the impact of recreational cannabis legalization on key public health outcomes.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Cannabis legalization and increasing cannabis use in the United States: Data from urine toxicology testing in emergency room patients.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- Investigating Cannabis-Use Among Students Attending High Schools Within the Cherokee Nation Reservation 2017 and 2019.Journal of community health · 2024Article
- The association between physical availability of cannabis retail outlets and frequent cannabis use and related health harms: a systematic review.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2024Review
- Cannabis and children: risk mitigation strategies for edibles.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- Effects of cannabis regulation in Switzerland: Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- On generating adequate counterfactuals for national policy evaluations. A response to Mundt et al.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2023Article
- Commentary on Rivera-Aguirre et al.: What are the effects of cannabis legalization on youth use? It may depend on what you mean by 'legalization'.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
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8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsIn 2013, Uruguay became the first country to legalize and regulate the production and distribution of cannabis for recreational use. We measured whether Uruguay's non-commercial model of recreational cannabis legalization was associated with changes in the prevalence of risky and frequent cannabis use among secondary school students.
designWe used data from repeated cross-sectional surveys of secondary students in Uruguay and Chile (2007-2018). Using a difference-in-difference approach, we evaluated changes in the prevalence of past-year, past-month, any risky and frequent cannabis use following enactment (2014) and implementation (2016) of cannabis legalization among the full sample of secondary students and among students who reported past-year/month use. We examined changes separately for students ages 12 to 17, and students for whom cannabis became legally accessible, ages 18 to 21.
settingUruguay and Chile (2007-2018).
participantsSecondary school students in 8th, 10th and 12th grade (n = 204 730). MEASUREMENTS: Past-year and past-month cannabis use; any risky cannabis use measured with the Cannabis Abuse Screening Test (CAST); and frequent cannabis use (10+ days in the past-month).
findingsWe found a decrease in past-year and past-month use following enactment or implementation. Among students ages 18 to 21, post-enactment, we observed a transitory increase in 2014 that decreased thereafter for: any risky use among those who reported past-year use (prevalence difference [PD] = 13.5%; 95% CI: 2.0, 24.9), frequent use in the full sample (PD = 4.5%; 95% CI: 1.0, 8.1), and frequent use among those who reported past-month use (PD = 16.8%; 95% CI: 1.9, 31.8).
conclusionThe legalization of recreational cannabis in Uruguay was not associated with overall increases in either past-year/past-month cannabis use or with multi-year changes in any risky and frequent cannabis use among young people.
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