But But… “The Children”
They keep saying ‘but what about the children?’ The latest youth-use and access data deserve a closer look.
Every time someone wants to restrict access to cannabis, here it comes: “But what about the children?”
No we care about the children(we have 4). That’s why we looked at the data.
In the CDC’s national survey, the share of high school students who reported using cannabis in the past 30 days fell from 23.1% in 2011 to 12.9% in 2025. A separate federal survey found past-year use among 12- to 17-year-olds was 8.7% in 2025, down from 10.9% in 2021.
And here’s the part that really challenges the scare tactic: in the Monitoring the Future survey, the share of 10th graders who said cannabis was fairly or very easy to get fell from 68.4% in 2011 to 40.2% in 2025.
The Marijuana Policy Project also compared government surveys from states that legalized adult use. In every state in its compilation, the latest reported high school use was lower than it was before legalization.
Did legalization single-handedly cause those declines? We can’t say that. But the prediction that legal adult access would send teen use soaring? That is not what these trends show.
Protecting young people means honest education, age checks, responsible storage, and paying attention when the evidence changes. It should never mean saying “the children” and then refusing to look at the numbers.
Prohibition has had decades to prove it protects us. I’m ready to ask a better question: How do we protect young people while ending the criminalization of this plant?
#TheFlowerPharm #DailySmoke
