Colorado and Washington, the first states to legalize pot, have seen a spike in marijuana use among adults while the rate among teenagers has remained flat, according to two studies.
The results of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) showed that, between 2012 and 2013, people 26 and older were smoking more pot in those states.
But the figures also revealed only a very slight uptick in marijuana use by children aged 12-17, according to
The Washington Post.
The findings were backed up by a more recent study of pot use by the federal government's
Monitoring the Future survey.
The Post pointed out that the NSDUH survey was taken when Colorado and Washington had legalized pot use but had not yet implemented any marijuana markets, which started earlier this year.
Officials can expect the rates to climb even higher when the surveys will reflect the sales in legalized pot shops, according to the newspaper, which noted that the rate of marijuana use has also increased by "significant amounts" in Maine, Georgia, Maryland and Missouri.
However, the NSDUH survey showed that
overall drug use rates among Americans is essentially flat on average, while teen use is actually trending downward. The same applies to alcohol consumption, the Post reported.
The two studies showed that marijuana use in Oklahoma and Nebraska has remained static in the 2012-2013 period, suggesting that Colorado's legalized weed is not filtering into those states. And another Colorado neighbor, Kansas, has the country's lowest rate pot use rate of any state.
In Alaska, where personal pot use has been basically ignored by authorities for four decades, the figures showed that adult marijuana use is among the highest in the nation. But teen use rates are basically flat, just as in Colorado and Washington.
"Overall, I'd expect to see a continued rise in adult use in states that legalize weed," writes the Post’s Christopher Ingraham in the Wonkblog segment.
"A big part of this will probably be the novelty factor: people who were previously discouraged from using marijuana due to its legal status may be tempted to give it a whirl when they can simply walk down the street and buy some at the store."
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