Teen Marijuana Use Is Falling, Even as Adult Cannabis Laws Become Less Restrictive

One of the most persistent arguments in the debate over marijuana reform has been that making cannabis legal or more accessible to adults will inevitably result in more teenagers using it. New data from the United States are challenging that assumption, and recent figures from Jamaica point in the same direction. In both places, adolescent marijuana use has been falling rather than rising, even as cannabis policy for adults has become considerably less restrictive.

The latest U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 12.9 percent of high school students reported using marijuana during the previous 30 days, down from 17 percent in 2023 and 23.1 percent in 2011. Lifetime use has also fallen, from 39.9 percent of high school students in 2011 to 25.5 percent in the latest survey. A separate federal survey produced a similar result. Among Americans aged 12 to 17, past-year marijuana use fell from 10.9 percent in 2021 to 8.7 percent in 2025, while past-month use declined from 6.1 percent to 5 percent.

Marijuana Moment

The timing makes those numbers particularly interesting. Colorado and Washington became the first U.S. states to approve recreational marijuana for adults in 2012, and legalization has spread widely since then. Adult marijuana use has increased over recent years, yet adolescent use nationally has moved in the opposite direction. That does not prove legalization caused teen use to fall.

Research into legalization and adolescent behaviour remains mixed, with studies finding everything from no significant change to small increases or decreases depending on the population, policy and period examined. What the national numbers do show is that widespread adult legalization has not been accompanied by the explosion in teenage marijuana use that was frequently predicted.

Jamaica is seeing a similar decline

The Caribbean now has a particularly relevant example of its own. Jamaica's 2026 Global School-Based Student Health Survey found that 15.7 percent of adolescents reported having used ganja at least once, compared with 21.5 percent in the 2017 survey. The new study covered 3,058 students from 32 schools and was designed to represent students in Grades 7 through 12. Jamaica's National Council on Drug Abuse has welcomed the decline, although it remains concerned that almost one quarter of adolescents say marijuana is easy to obtain.

Jamaica is an especially interesting case because the country changed its ganja laws in 2015. Possession of two ounces or less was made a ticketable rather than arrestable offence, and a regulated industry was established for medical, therapeutic and scientific cannabis. The reforms were accompanied by public education specifically aimed at discouraging use among children and other vulnerable groups. More than a decade later, the latest school survey shows lower adolescent ganja use than in 2017. Again, that cannot establish that reform caused the decline. It does show that easing criminal penalties for adults and reducing youth use are not necessarily contradictory objectives.

That's important for the wider Caribbean, where discussions about marijuana frequently become trapped between two positions: legal reform will either normalize cannabis and encourage children to use it, or legalization itself will somehow solve the problems associated with an underground market. The evidence is more complicated than either argument. Adult cannabis policy and youth cannabis prevention are related, but they are not the same policy question.

St. Maarten has an old data problem

St. Maarten has its own history of adolescent cannabis use, although the most useful figures are now far too old to tell us what is happening among teenagers today. A peer-reviewed study reviewing earlier St. Maarten research noted that 28.5 percent of adolescents surveyed in 2001 reported having used cannabis at least once. That figure had declined to 20.2 percent by 2011. The researchers specifically noted, however, that more recent St. Maarten data were needed.

That absence of current information should matter to any future discussion about cannabis policy here. St. Maarten should not have to borrow American or Jamaican assumptions about what its teenagers are doing. Government has begun implementing a Youth Monitor intended to improve data collection on residents up to age 24, and that initiative could eventually provide the kind of regular information needed to follow substance-use trends rather than debating them largely through perception and anecdote.

Falling use does not mean there is no problem

None of these numbers should be interpreted as an argument that marijuana presents no risk to teenagers. Cannabis affects functions involving memory, attention, learning, decision-making and coordination, and developing brains are particularly susceptible to its effects. Risk is also influenced by how early someone starts, how frequently cannabis is used and the THC strength of the product.

The decline in overall use therefore does not remove the need for prevention, particularly around early and frequent consumption. CDC Jamaica's numbers demonstrate the point. A lower percentage of teenagers may be using ganja than nine years ago, but 15.7 percent still represents a considerable share of the student population, and access remains relatively easy. The question should therefore not become whether cannabis is "good" or "bad." For policymakers, schools and parents, the more useful question is what actually keeps young people from starting early and what interventions work for those already using.

There is also no basis yet for declaring a Caribbean-wide decline. Countries conduct youth surveys in different years and sometimes use different measures, making clean regional comparisons difficult. Some Caribbean jurisdictions have recorded higher rather than lower prevalence in more recent surveys. Jamaica provides strong evidence of a decline within Jamaica, while St. Maarten's older figures suggest that youth cannabis use here had also been moving downward at one point. Neither should be stretched into a claim about every island.

The policy debate may need to change

Perhaps the most useful lesson from the new American and Jamaican figures is that adult cannabis reform and protecting children do not have to be treated as opposing ideas. A government can decide how adults should be regulated while simultaneously enforcing age restrictions, limiting youth access, educating students and parents, monitoring products and funding prevention.

The U.S. experience is not proof that legalization reduces teenage marijuana use. Jamaica's experience is not proof that decriminalization does so either. There are too many other social, cultural and behavioural factors involved to make that conclusion.

But the numbers do challenge one assumption.

Making cannabis policy less punitive for adults does not automatically mean teenagers will use more marijuana.

In two very different societies, youth use is going down. For the Caribbean, that should be a reason to collect better data, ask better questions and build cannabis policy around what young people are actually doing, rather than what adults assume they will do.

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