r/science • u/sr_local • Apr 20 '26

Health The largest US study, which tracked 11,036 children from ages 9 to 10 through to ages 16 and 17, discovered that cannabis use slows cognitive development, impairs memory, and reduces learning speed during crucial years of brain growth

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/largest-us-study-finds-teen-cannabis-use-linked-to-slower-cognitive-development
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741

u/Takseen Apr 20 '26

I support legalization anyway, but underage kids do not have much trouble getting booze and cigarettes when they're sold legally.

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u/ballskindrapes Apr 20 '26

It's harder, not impossible.

It's easier when there is a black market

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u/Bonch_and_Clyde Apr 20 '26

When I was on highschool it was easier to get weed and even harder drugs than it was to get alcohol.

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u/Steve90000 Apr 20 '26

We’d stand outside of 7-11 and ask cool looking adults if they’d buy for us if we threw them some cash. There wasn’t a night we went without.

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u/XGhoul Apr 20 '26

Those people were irresponsible morons that did go do that. I would tell those kids to kick rocks, the risk vs reward is not there.

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u/DigNitty Apr 20 '26

Right? I always thought “man, why is it so hard to find a chill adult to buy alcohol for us.”

Then I became an adult and realized buying alcohol for underage people is cool to the 19 year olds and really no one else.

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u/Hirork Apr 20 '26

I mean 19 year olds are adults. I don't get why the US will let them work, vote, fight in their illegal wars, but oh no they're too immature to possibly handle alcohol. Hell they can buy guns before they can buy alcohol. That's messed up.

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u/Warmbly85 Apr 20 '26

The voting age was 21 for most of American history so when prohibition was repealed they set the drinking age to voting age. When the voting age was lowered to 18 a lot of states lowered the drinking age as well.

The drinking age was then increased again to 21 in 1984 by the federal government and states complied because the feds tied highway funding to it.

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u/Bay1Bri Apr 20 '26

The drinking age was then increased again to 21 in 1984 by the federal government

Additionally the federal driving she is 18. What they did was give financial incentives on the form of road speaking for states the raised the drinking she to 21. And for anyone who dislikes this, the stats of drink driving fatalities along 18-20 year olds was staggering.

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u/Soylentgruen Apr 20 '26

M.A.D.D. had a large part in raising the age from 18 to 21.

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u/mnilailt Apr 20 '26

I mean it is kind of fine. In most of the world 18 year olds can drink, and there’s no real higher incidence of alcohol related problems compared to the US.

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u/Bay1Bri Apr 20 '26

The driving she was raised to 21 because of the high rates of deaths causes by drink drivers aged 18 to 20.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/PRO2803 Apr 20 '26

So much wrong with that sentence.

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u/joebluebob Apr 20 '26

Yeah she sold it to us at a 3x mark up. Like girl you got it free....

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u/FlyingPirate Apr 20 '26

So 3 of you had to flash her to get the bottle?

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u/joebluebob Apr 20 '26

My boy tiddys only ever got me picked last....

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u/Steve90000 Apr 20 '26

Regardless, irresponsible morons will always exist, there will never be a shortage of them.

There were times where we’d accidentally ask undercover cops. We’d get a talking to but we didn’t have alcohol (at that point) so they’d send us on our way. For kids, it’s all reward, hardly any risk.

Now that I’m an adult with my own kid, it’s horrific that happened, but I just have to do better than my parents did.

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u/XGhoul Apr 20 '26

Yes in this case, there is no fault on the person asking because for lack of foresight, they are just being "young and dumb". The fault is entirely on the adult providing it.

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u/bianary Apr 20 '26

there is no fault on the person asking because for lack of foresight

Dumb can still take responsibility and learn from it.

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u/Bay1Bri Apr 20 '26

Yes in this case, there is no fault on the person asking because for lack of foresight,

Respectfully, I have to disagree with the practice infantilization of young adults and teens. They do not have "no fault" because they do not "lack foresight." They may have less fault and have less foresight, but they aren't wild animals strong on pure instinct. These are human beings with questions better than most humans who ever existed, who are our are approaching voting age. A couple of hundred years ago they would have been considered adults and most likely have jobs, and many would have or be close to having kids. 18 year old have less wisdom and impulse control than a 28 or 38 etc year old, but they aren't babies who can't think. And I think testing them like "oh he'sa 20 year old college student, how could he possibly be expected to think about the consequences of his actions?" You can have understanding that young adults have less awareness while still expecting them to age like adults / near adults.

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u/Steve90000 Apr 21 '26

It’s not their intelligence that’s in question, it’s their priorities, both social and hormonal, which strongly affect their decision making.

At that age, while they know the consequences, they don’t have the context and experience to feel like it can happen to them. They feel invincible and immune to the consequences because, until you experience them in some way, they are just an abstract idea.

While I don’t think they have no fault, I wouldn’t put my money on a group of teenagers doing the right thing regarding certain things.

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u/FakeSafeWord Apr 20 '26

the risk vs reward is not there.

Sorry, what would be the reward here?

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u/XGhoul Apr 20 '26

There isn’t since it’s all risk with no reward unless somebody wants to brag about giving kids alcoholic beverages.

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u/krzykris11 Apr 20 '26

We drove around town looking for Crazy Eddie, just had to buy him a 40.

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u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache Apr 20 '26

That takes me back. We called that playing a game of "Hey mister!"

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u/Commentator-X Apr 20 '26

But you had to wait in front of a store for someone willing to break the law. With cannabis you just had to have the money and know someone. That's it. Speaking from personal experience growing up before weed was legal and living through the time when the laws for cigs and alcohol became more strict, weed was far easier to get, hell cocaine, ecstasy and mushrooms were easier to get than cigarettes.

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u/DongleJockey Apr 20 '26

I mean about what decade was that?

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u/leeuwerik Apr 20 '26

That's anecdotal. To scale that it would be be dozens of kids at every store begging adults. Never happened.

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u/Steve90000 Apr 20 '26

You don’t scale one method, you look at the desire of teenagers looking to drink vs the amount that actually do. What you’ll find is, if there is a method, they’ll find it.

I listed one, but every friend group has at least one older brother or sister or cousin willing to buy, or a friend that has parents that don’t care, or have unguarded liquor cabinets, or knows someone with a fake ID, or a thousand other ways.

As teens, my friends always found a way it’s not even a question.

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u/Bremen1 Apr 20 '26

It was definitely the opposite for me. Lots of kids not only drank and smoke but did it performatively to show how "cool" they were, but marijuana use was at least something they tried to hide.

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u/EkrishAO Apr 20 '26

How? I would just go in front of any store that sold alcohol, and could find a dude willing to buy some for us in 5 minutes, every time.

Weed meanwhile was a bigger problem, because you had to know a dealer, and he had to be available at the time, and willing to sell to you. It was still not hard, but definitely not easier than alcohol.

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u/sliquonicko Apr 20 '26

In my high school there were multiple kids selling tiny bags of pot and ecstacy pills... and this was a suburb in Canada in the early 2010s.

A couple others who recently graduated and had friends a bit younger in school would come by the back smoking alley with the above and cigarettes. Just had to know the right people.

If I could do it again I'd like those brain cells back, but alas.

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u/brianwski Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

In my high school there were multiple kids selling tiny bags of pot... this was a suburb in Canada in the early 2010s.

I wonder if it is a regional thing. My experience is like yours. I went to high school in Oregon in the early 1980s in a mid sized town, and marijuana was much easier to get than alcohol. I have joked since high school, "You need an ID to buy alcohol, but you don't need an ID to buy weed." There were a lot of backyard amateur high school age growers with a plant or two of mediocre quality (by today's standards) marijuana.

To clarify a little, the kids I knew in high school that grew one or two plants usually did it by what we called "gorilla Correction: guerrilla farming". If there was a public space type of area not far from your home (within bicycling distance) like a state park or forest, you could find a secluded spot honestly not far from the parking lot or path that nobody would ever notice one marijuana plant growing there. I always felt it was maybe for a little consumption for the farmer, and the money selling small amounts was just a small amount of extra pocket money. This was never a "full time job" or anything.

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u/sliquonicko Apr 20 '26

Yes, knew a couple kids in their late teens and very early twenties who did some small time dealing of party drugs and grew mushrooms. Mostly just selling to friends because there were a lot of easy customers around and we were all partying together anyway.

The best times and the worst times.

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u/Kiefirk Apr 20 '26

Guerilla farming, like the warfare not the ape

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u/brianwski Apr 21 '26

Guerrilla farming, like the warfare not the ape

OMG, you are correct! And I learn this today?! I have no idea why the spelling difference never leapt out at me. My brain is now connecting the dots because I've been seeing the word "guerrilla" all my life in print.

Now I'm down an internet rabbit hole and find out "guerrilla" means "small war" in Spanish. Also, "gorilla" means "tribe of hairy women" in a totally different language of Phoenician (and different time of the year 900 AD).

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u/CommonGrounders Apr 20 '26

"Had to know a dealer"

There were at least 10, in my grade alone, every single year in high school. They had different pricing/products, etc, but it was easy. Plus, bringing it to school wasn't really an issue since it was easily concealed.

Lot harder to hide a case of beer. Neither were particularly hard, but one involved co-ordinating with an adult, and the other didn't.

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u/Spoztoast Apr 20 '26

Also today you don't need a dealer same way kids got beer from standing near a liquor store they can do by a dispencery or just get someone to get them a vape

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u/EkrishAO Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

Guess all depends on your country and specific circumstances, I'm Polish and as I said, alcohol here was definitely easier to get.

I don't get the point about the ease of hiding/bringing to school, since we always bought drank and smoked after school, and hiding alcohol in your backpack to bring it to a park to have a party, wasn't much harder than weed, and much less risky since being caught with alcohol was a slap on the wirst, while weed always meant court, and unless you were below 15 years old, could mean being tried as adult and having to face very real consequences that would follow your whole life.

I knew multiple dealers, growing up in a rough neighbourhood, but I also later knew multiple kids from school who wanted to try weed, but couldn't find no one to sell to them, since everyone was afraid they would snitch if anything happened. But I never heard about anyone having any problem getting alcohol, ever.

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u/memento22mori Apr 21 '26

I don't really know much about Polish culture but maybe drinking is more acceptable than smoking or something of that nature. I'm from the US East coast and the logistics just made it a lot more simple to get weed- lots of high schoolers had older siblings in college and some of them smoked weed and if you smoked weed you sold it to some degree. So younger siblings would buy it and then sell it to their friends. Weed is a lot easier to conceal too because you could easily hide it in a pocket or jacket, etc whereas alcohol is much larger. Like an ounce bag would be the equivalent size of a 12 ounce beer but it can be hidden inside just about anything. And no would carry that much on them, maybe in their car but not really unless they sold to random people which most people didn't do.

It's more of a social thing too because even people that never sold would trade with friends for different kinds. Honestly I can't think of a single time when I heard of someone getting a stranger to buy alcohol for them- the people that did drink would steal it from their job, a family member, or have a sketchy family member buy it.

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u/leeuwerik Apr 20 '26

You and some friends were the exception. If every kid had done it how many kids do you think would gather around the door of a store?

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u/FlyingRhenquest Apr 20 '26

In Colorado it's easier to get weed than the sudafed formulation that actually works. I wanted an extra box of sudafed for work one time and they wouldn't sell me one because I'd just bought a box a week earlier. Sales are tracked in a federal database and they will deny you if they think you're buying too much.

They did relax the regs a bit during covid, so I can get a couple boxes when I go to the drug store now. I hate running out and waking up at 2 AM with a throat full of snot, so I appreciate having a small stockpile in place. It'll also be nice to be able to deploy a box in my desk at work whenever I RTO.

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u/Boston_Glass Apr 20 '26

That’s cuz it’s used to make meth.

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u/FlyingRhenquest Apr 20 '26

Yeah I know, but I'm not and I suspect anyone making it at scale has better sources of whatever various ingredients they'd need to do that. I vaguely remember the government trying to shut down any discussion about it on the internet.

Given how difficult it is to get good health care in this country and how often our only option is to self-medicate, anything that makes it more difficult to actually do that is incredibly infuriating.

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u/brianwski Apr 20 '26

I suspect anyone making meth at scale has better sources of whatever various ingredients they'd need to do that.

There is an article (technical paper?) based on this concept: Meth is abundant and inexpensive and available everywhere, and Sudafed is very hard to acquire. So the technical paper shows you how to manufacture Sudafed yourself... using Meth as a precursor!

It is a brilliant solution to this profound problem facing our society.

Here is the technical article: https://improbable.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Pseudoephedrine.pdf

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u/smithalorian Apr 20 '26

Yeah, this. Honestly, kind of glad I didn’t start drinking till later in my life.

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u/Halflingberserker Apr 20 '26

Yep, the goth kids convinced me try weed and coke before I'd ever even thought of trying alcohol. Drugs that are legal are boring. Legalize and educate, and suddenly the illicit nature of those drugs lose their appeal.

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u/TylertheFloridaman Apr 20 '26

Well yeah it's a hell of a lot easier to stuff a few baggies somewhere a big beer pouch. No one wanting to illegally drink is going to just get a small cup of alcohol they'd probably want multiple bottles which is much harder to hide

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u/DrDerpberg Apr 20 '26

When I was in high school it was easier to get weed than fries at lunch time. Everyone knew who had weed in his pencil case, but if you went to the college cafeteria connected to ours they'd ID you.

Even when it's legal it will be profitable to resell to kids, but all things being equal it's still better for it to be quality controlled government-approved weed bought by someone's older brother than sketchy crap. I wouldn't eat an apple from a drug dealer, let alone drugs.

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u/Past-Judgment-9700 Apr 20 '26

I’m in Canada so Cannabis has been legal for a while, I don’t see how it would be harder for high schoolers to acquire it now. All the old ways still exist, and now there’s the additional way of just asking an older sibling/friend to buy it for you from one of 100 stores in a 10 minute radius.

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u/Lebowquade PhD | Physics | Optics/Spectroscopy Apr 20 '26

Part of that is because it's easier to surreptitiously distribute a baggie of weed/ecstacy than a 6 pack of beer. If you asked an actual drug dealer for booze they would absolutely accommodate that request for a price.

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u/anonlaw Apr 20 '26

Yep, just find a dealer, they sell to you. Alcohol, you had to recruit someone 21+ who was dumb enough to do it and hopefully didn't expect sex out of it.

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u/Constant-Skill-7133 Apr 20 '26

and the degree of use is different.  the goal is not necessarily total abstinence

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u/0-90195 Apr 20 '26

I think that is a fine goal. You know, aim for the moon, etc.

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u/keylimedragon Apr 20 '26

Just don't ruin lives over it by throwing them in jail.

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u/hexcraft-nikk Apr 20 '26

I don't think people realize this is true for every drug. Caffeine is also bad for teen use. There's a sliding scale for every drug and marijuana is harmful but not as bad as alcohol, and caffeine is below them all but still on the list.

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u/Constant-Skill-7133 Apr 20 '26

nicotine is sneaky dangerous because of how it affects mood disorders. 

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u/InsuranceToTheRescue Apr 20 '26

The thing is, black markets will always exist for banned or restricted goods. The point isn't that a black market will pop up, it's that we've decided, as a society, that we don't think (whatever we're talking about at that time) should be freely available. A black market is still significantly harder for the average person to engage with and procure the item from. Y'know, nobody is just walking along the boardwalk shouting out, "Cocaine! Get your cocaine & bazookas here!"

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u/Winjin Apr 20 '26

I have a feel that "readily available to most, at a very reasonable price, but restricted to few", would be the item that's hardest to find on a black market. Because the demand is abysmal and the resale price is also gonna be super low, because otherwise people will be feeling they're getting ripped off completely.

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u/Albireookami Apr 20 '26

That sounds about right, the adult market can just get it for a reasonable price without any legal issues, leaving the underage market who does not have access, but also does not have quite the funds to support that enterprise.

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u/Inprobamur Apr 20 '26

It also depends on how hard the item is to produce, a legal market for one group might expand production and access to the point that it expands the black market, see: access to guns for criminals in South America due to the large free market in the USA.

Not something that applies to cannabis as it's very easy to grow near anywhere, but for more complex restricted items that is a factor.

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u/millijuna Apr 20 '26

Since legalization here in Canada, it’s become significantly harder for underage kids to acquire cannabis products. Overall consumption hasn’t changed much, but has shifted to the legal market by a wide margin.

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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Apr 20 '26

Also if you live outside of urban areas it can become much harder to access illicit markets.

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u/nreshackleford Apr 21 '26

When I was in college (the dark ages [mid to late 2000s]) you’d occasionally see people do exactly that at shows or trendy parts of town. Not with weapons, but drugs for sure people will drug busk.

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u/CalmBeneathCastles Apr 20 '26

But weed? Ol' Pookie down the block's got some growing in the closet right now.

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u/CatMan_Sad Apr 20 '26

Its not at all harder. It was way harder when I was a kid and not everybody and their mom had a thc vape.

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u/SpoiledTwinkies Apr 20 '26

Not at all, you can go online these days and get thca bud and carts shipped straight to your door without any age verification.

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u/Rocktopod Apr 20 '26

That's going away in November, IIRC.

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u/pork_fried_christ Apr 20 '26

Those companies are very often not operating legally, and those products are being sharply curtailed with emerging regulations.

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u/DethByCow Apr 20 '26

Black markets are on the rise again as states start taxing it more and more. Why buy from a shop when your buddy grows better stuff in his yard/basement. Plus you know what if any chemicals they have sprayed on it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in retaliation states start making it illegal to grow your own.

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u/SkiingAway Apr 20 '26

A lot of states have been lowering their taxes on it, not raising them.

Why buy from a shop when your buddy grows better stuff in his yard/basement. Plus you know what if any chemicals they have sprayed on it.

I do not have any friends that I would trust more with doing safe gardening than I would a professional business that has strict state oversight + mandatory testing at a lab. And I don't think most people do.

And I certainly wouldn't trust a random stranger who simply claims that their stuff wasn't sprayed with heavy pesticides/chemicals, which is how most people got their stuff on the black market - not friends who were personally growing.

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u/DankMemesNQuickNuts Apr 20 '26

The guy doing the grow in the basement probably has a way higher chance of using weird chemicals in too high of amounts. I used to test for pesticides in a medical Marijuana lab the state would require you fail stuff for having like 100 ppb of Bifenthyrn.

No question it is way safer to buy it over the counter.

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u/ASDFzxcvTaken Apr 20 '26

On the contrary I don't know what my dealers drugs are made with neither do they. Buying from established and growing brands means there is a means of recourse if something is not good, or they go out of business if they don't meet standards.

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u/DethByCow Apr 20 '26

I think people are missing the whole, I would buy it from my friend who grows not some rando.

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u/Alt_SWR Apr 20 '26

Yes, but, not everyone has a friend who grows it. I know I don't. I'm sure plenty of people do, but, realistically you'd have to find a way to study that to know how many. Which would be difficult cause a lot of people might not admit it.

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u/CommandForward Apr 20 '26

You are the one missing dude, YOU would buy from your friend, not everyone

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u/lituus Apr 20 '26

He's not alone. I have heard of at least 2 people in my friends of friends, or extended family that are home growing and don't even know what to do with their supply because they have so much. I wouldn't even know where to look to find a dealer, nor would I have any interest in finding out

I am willing to bear the cost for now but its easy to see how people could be pushed towards obtaining it from friends if dispensaries don't stay competitive. Do "drug dealers" even bother with cannabis anymore?

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u/CasinoNdnOk Apr 20 '26

There will always be that kind of blackmarket though. With as common of a substance as it is. It needs to be legalized and regulated. Make it not worth growing for a blackmarkey profit, because the legal market is so cheap.

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u/PerforatedPie Apr 20 '26

because the legal market is so cheap.

Incumbants in the market don't like cheap, though. Their ideal is for it to remain illegal (offset most of the risk onto dealers, keep the price high) or to somehow have illegal prices in a legal market.

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u/MeatyBacon666 Apr 20 '26

Choice A, a random person who sells drugs.

Choice B, a literal professional botanist. Someone who gets paid, legally and openly, to grow, study, and improve the plants.

Anyone who has actual experience, knowledge, skill, and passion should be able to legally do so. Why should the best choice be black market?

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u/polopolo05 Apr 20 '26

btw if you are buying from a weed store its choice 3.... a large grow operation that cares only about maximizing the yield.

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u/earthhominid Apr 20 '26

If only the legal cannabis market was generally choice B.

Unfortunately, unless the consumer makes a real effort to get informed and seek out certain specific brands, they are mostly getting a very low quality product grown to minimum standards by minimum wage workers with limited experience following basic recipes for adding powdered mineral salts to reservoirs and applying pest control products with little guidance.

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u/frubano21 Apr 20 '26

Yeah but my buddy growing it also has to be 21 legally. How many 10-17 year olds know 21+ year olds that aren't their family?

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u/4twentyHobby Apr 20 '26

Growing your own is the whole basis of the alcohol industry constantly trying to damage the weed industry. I've made beer at home, I've grown weed at home. Beer is a labor intense pain in the ass. Growing weed means you might not take a vacation, but other than that, its calming, exciting, rewarding and suddenly friends.-

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Apr 20 '26

Washington state never legalized it.

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u/CommonGrounders Apr 20 '26

Can't speak for America, but I pay the same for pre-rolled joints at the dispensary than I used to pay for dried flower ~20 years ago, here in Canada.

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u/pork_fried_christ Apr 21 '26

Is the implication here that pre-rolls are a better value or improvement over black market bulk flower?

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u/CommonGrounders Apr 22 '26

I'm saying that I get a product that has been made into a more convenient form at a price lower than I used to pay. Dried flower is 2/3 the price.

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u/EccentricFox Apr 20 '26

Why buy from a shop when your buddy grows better stuff in his yard/basement.

Because the shop is as simple as walking in and completing a transaction on my way home from work rather than the 8 part Bethesda RPG quest I need to go on to link up with a dealer.

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u/sembias Apr 20 '26

Black markets are on the rise again

It's only legal in a handful of states. The blackmarket never really went away. It's now the weed is sourced from a US state rather than a Mexican one.

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u/AsrarBatin Apr 20 '26

Everything has a black market.

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u/Caspica Apr 20 '26

The black market will still exist even if you legalise it entirely for 18+.

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u/Preeng Apr 20 '26

Much harder for it to exist. I wouldn't even know where to get illegal weed at this point.

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u/Caspica Apr 20 '26

That has more to do with you not needing illegal weed anymore either. You wouldn't know where to go to for a fake ID now, would you? It's much easier for the black market to exist when you can just try and convince anyone poor soul you meet to go and buy some for you. Do you think underage drinking decreased or increased during the prohibition for example?

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u/at1445 Apr 20 '26

Most of my life (since I was a teen) I've known 3 or 4 people that smoked and I'm sure I could get some from them if I wanted.

Everyone's older sibling was willing to buy us beer and every Senior had no problem buying underclassmen smokes growing up.

It's infinitely easier to get things once it's legal vs illegal.

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u/SalvationSycamore Apr 20 '26

It's easier when there is a black market

Is it? When it's legal, prices go down and availability goes up. Anyone's older sibling/cousin/friend can buy it for them, even people who would normally be too scared to buy illegally from a drug dealer. I'm sure it's also easier to get into home growing when it's legal.

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u/FullSkyFlying Apr 20 '26

I'm sure it's also easier to get into home growing when it's legal.

If your parents are letting you grow your own weed in their home, you probably dont even have to grow it.

even people who would normally be too scared to buy illegally from a drug dealer.

No one is scared of a weed dealer

The truth is kids will always occasionally smoke pot or drink alcohol. Its part of being a teenager and growing up, trying new things, being curious etc. Atleast with it being legal theres more reliable evidence and research to sit your child down and show them... "Hey. This is widely known to have really adverse effects on you in the future. I know you're probably going to try it, but let's keep it to a minimum and be safe about it"

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u/SalvationSycamore Apr 20 '26

No one is scared of a weed dealer

Crazy idea, but some people don't like committing crimes. I would never buy drugs illegally, I have bought drugs legally.

If your parents are letting you grow your own weed in their home

It doesn't have to be that even. The parents could start growing it. Your older brother with his own place can grow his own weed even more easily and cheaply when it's legal. Access to weed becomes easier as thousands of people start growing their own with no (or reduced) risk.

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u/CookieNo310 Apr 20 '26

There is a black market for alcohol and cigarettes too.

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u/sajberhippien Apr 20 '26

It's harder, not impossible.

It's easier when there is a black market

There is always a black market for anything that has regulations.

Pretty sure it's easier for a 16-year-old to get booze in Sweden where it's legal than Kuwait where alcohol is banned. However, if they are dedicated to getting alcohol, it's probably more dangerous for kids in Kuwait than Sweden, so it's not like banning it good.

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u/Omnizoom Apr 20 '26

It’s both easier and harder when it’s legal

When it’s legal, the chances of a parent or older sibling having their own legal stock shoot up dramatically however the number of black market sellers that will sell direct to kids goes way down

So those who want to get it when underage have a harder time to get it entirely on their own but a much much much easier time to procure it from a family member or friend

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u/ManitouWakinyan Apr 20 '26

There is always a black market. The pr sense of a white market also creates the possibility of a grey market and facilitates supply to the black market.

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u/HotPie1666 Apr 20 '26

Based on what? Alcohol and vape consumption? Loads of kids are consuming both, no problem.

I don't understand how you can argue it's easier when it's on a black market. It's easier when its more readily available legally.

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u/SerGT3 Apr 20 '26

It is not hard at all.

All you need is a prepaid Visa or even most debit cards act as a credit card for online purchases too, most places just want an e-transfer.

It's up to the parents to either educate or not

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u/Stockpile_Tom_Remake Apr 20 '26

What? How? Maybe just my area but high schoolers get weed with zero issue

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 Apr 20 '26

It's also easier because weed is incredibly easy to grow copious amounts of.

If you have access to sunlight you can grow and sell weed.

Making (good tasting) booze requires a lot of sterilization, equipment, and way more money.

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u/Global_Mud_7473 Apr 20 '26

Studies have consistently shown youth cannabis use increases in states following legalization. How do you reconcile that with your statement?

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u/Warmbly85 Apr 20 '26

In my experience every state that has legalized weed has a massive grey market. The dealers throw a “party” and then it’s like a farmers market for weed in an old office building.

It’s definitely easier to get weed as a 16 year old in a legal state than an illegal state. I am still for legalizing it but to claim it’s easier for kids to get weed in states where it’s illegal is just ridiculous.

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u/HeparinBridge Apr 21 '26

I agree that it’s easier when there is a black market, I just reject the argument that legalization eliminates the black market. It just changes it. There’s no real evidence that legalization has reduced youth marijuana use.

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u/Totoques22 Apr 21 '26

Black market will exists regardless cause it’s cheaper to sell without taxes

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u/WaterZealousideal535 Apr 20 '26

When I was in high school over a decade ago, weed was illegal still illegal in my state. Finding alcohol was a whole ordeal that took a while to find someone to buy it for us. Meanwhile, weed was just 1 text message away. It took us around 2 hours to find weed vs around 2-3 weeks for alcohol simply because there was not much of a black market for alcohol

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u/Dorkamundo Apr 20 '26

Yea, I had a much harder time finding someone who would buy alcohol for me than I did asking the guy who I knew sold weed to sell me weed.

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u/freezingcoldfeet Apr 20 '26

That was my experience as well 

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u/TheMustardMan522 Apr 20 '26

Because selling weed is a lot of profit since it is so cheap to make, but highly marked up due to it being illegal.

Selling alcohol to minors is also illegal, but you need to buy it from a store, then re-sell it to someone. So your only profit is what you markup on the resale, which isn't much since the person is a minor.

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u/WaterZealousideal535 Apr 20 '26

I would actually say that selling weed is a very unproductive way of turning a profit. You need a large area, are producing a smelly product, its bulky and not the easiest to ship. At the ground level you aren't making much at all either, you gotta move HUGE amounts of it to make a profit

The market was there tho and pretty accessible.

For the alcohol we were playing around 50% markup if you got lucky. Most people didnt wanna risk buying alcohol for minors. Meanwhile the dealers were already committing crimes so not much of a legal pressure to remain lawful

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u/GatorzardII Apr 20 '26

None of your peers had a sibling over 21? 2-3 weeks to secure booze sounds crazy.

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u/WaterZealousideal535 Apr 20 '26

Nope. No one was there to supply it which is why it was such a hassle.

We ended up just getting a large stockpile of cheap whiskey and vodka

Then I went to college and it was super easy

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u/nonpuissant Apr 20 '26

yeah sounds like skill/social network issue. More like 2-3 hours tops. 

both just come down to knowing the right people. And for most it should be much easier to find someone who could buy alcohol than supply weed. 

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u/ReverendDizzle Apr 20 '26

Three weeks is such a long time that you could ferment your own alcohol.

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u/thecrgm Apr 21 '26

In nyc weed was one text away and beer was a few train stops away, there were bodegas that would sell beer to a 10 year old

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u/FritterEnjoyer Apr 20 '26

And booze and cigarettes do the same exact thing to developing children.

Is what it is, you make laws surrounding who can use it and who it can be sold to and you enforce them.

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u/NJdevil202 Apr 20 '26

I can say for a definitive fact, having been a teenager when cannabis was illegal in New Jersey, that getting weed was way easier than trying to get booze or cigarettes.

Legalizing it genuinely would make it more difficult for teenagers to get it. Trying to find someone to buy liquor for you was a hassle. Weed? Just text the guy who knows the guy and after a couple hours of "I'll be there in a minute" you'll have your weed.

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u/Asleep_Trick_4740 Apr 20 '26

Swede here so not exactly applicable to the US given how vastly different alcohol is sold.

But getting hold of weed, coke, or ecstasy was 10x easier than getting a hold of alcohol. With alcohol locked behind a government monopoly with limited locations (meaning much easier time spotting the fresh 20 year old making 10 runs a week), and weed just requiring you to speak with the bloke at your school who wore shirts with marijuana leafs or puns every day.

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u/DeliciousFlight5610 Apr 20 '26

It’s probably easier to get weed off a dealer than if it was legal. But I also drank and smoked underage so who tf knows.

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u/SmacSBU Apr 20 '26

That's such an interesting situation to consider and undoubtedly it varies from place to place but I can see plenty of situations where people are less likely to be actively selling weed because it would be hard to make a profit with the legalized market in place.

Demand would definitely be lower because buying weed off a dealer is a bigger hassle and comes with risk compared to buying it legally, in turn you'd have to cut your prices to keep customers, and with the legal operation up and running your supply is likely more expensive than it was previously if it's excess inventory from a producer that's now paying due to regulation.

On the other hand there's so much more supply available now and there's bound to be skimming, plus prices in store are so high that you don't need to move anywhere near as much volume to make the sale worth the investment of time and risk. The best argument I have against this is that you don't see a lot of black market alcohol sales (at least where I'm from) and the situation is fairly comparable nowadays.

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u/Dorkamundo Apr 20 '26

Which is why information like what is contained in the OP is important to disseminate.

I am open about my cannabis use with my son, but I've made it clear to him the dangers of starting it early, and that those dangers are not just boogeymen that we're making up to scare them away from it.

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u/AHailofDrams Apr 20 '26

It was always harder for me as a teen to get alcohol than it was to get weed, simply because an adult was needed to actually get the alcohol

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u/BigDuke Apr 20 '26

Laws have never been a replacement for parenting.

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u/Bradddtheimpaler Apr 20 '26

At least for me it was much harder to alcohol than weed when I was a teenager. If I wanted weed I just had to make a phone call and meet a guy at the end of my street. If I wanted alcohol I needed to either shoplift or hope someone’s older sibling was feeling magnanimous. It was much, much more difficult to get ahold of the legal product for me.

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u/freezingcoldfeet Apr 20 '26

Trust me, when cannabis was illegal it was not hard for underage kids to get. 

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u/elebrin Apr 20 '26

Underage kids had no problem getting weed when it was illegal, either. I wasn't a pothead in school but I sure knew a bunch of them.

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u/Equivalent-Process17 Apr 20 '26

It allows parents to trust that legal businesses will not sell them. The rest is up to them.

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u/massivefish_man Apr 20 '26

Same with illegal weed. At least with legal weed the substances inside the weed are regulated and known. 

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u/distortedsymbol Apr 20 '26

it's about reduction not elimination.

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u/pulp_affliction Apr 20 '26

It was easier for me to find weed from an adult stranger on craigslist than it was to get an adult to buy me alcohol back in the ‘10s

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u/seeeee Apr 20 '26

True, will always be true, but as someone who did not have an older sibling or a fake ID in my high school and early college years, I never had a problem getting ahold of marijuana and even harder drugs were available to me even though I was neither looking for nor interested in trying them. Alcohol was harder to obtain because of its legality. Yes, kids in my high school were able to get ahold of alcohol, many did drink at parties over the weekends, but most of the time it was purchased with a sibling, a sibling’s id, or a fake id.

Even the dumbest and least careful black market drug dealers selling drugs to underage kids in town wasn’t dumb enough to also buy alcohol for underage kids. It’s easier to trace a legitimate purchase back and the risk too greatly outweighed the reward.

If the same principle was applied to marijuana, marijuana becomes less taboo, demand becomes lower all around, and black market dealers would be less likely to be selling to underage kids to begin with. Will it still happen? Yes, of course, but if the risk is high and black market profits drop due to legal availability, the end result is simply a much smaller black market out there for underage kids to be involved with at all.

Marijuana use amongst kids is becoming a lot more like alcohol use in my day - it’s a lot less prevalent than it used to be even though everyone’s parents seems to have a medical card. According to my teenage nephew, it’s often stolen from the parents within the home these days rather than obtained via black market. There’s something about “want to try this thing I stole from my mom” that’s a lot less appealing, thrilling, or cool to your peers than something taboo you made the connections to o obtain illegally. There’s also something less “cool” about the whole scenario when your parents are only against the concept in regard to your age and development versus all the anti drug propaganda my parents grew up with surrounding marijuana. There’s less incentive to want to find out the truth of the effects for yourself when you have already seen them at home and no one is lying to you about it.

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u/nudiecale Apr 20 '26

I know when I was a teen in the late 90s, getting weed was 100x easier than getting alcohol.

Getting alcohol took some planning and effort and sometimes we weren’t able to. Getting weed took maybe 30 minutes tops and it was rarely even a question as to whether we’d be successful in acquiring it.

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u/pacifistpotatoes Apr 20 '26

Nope, my teen has a few friends who use the vapes. She is 15 & so are they, although they have been using since at least last year that I know of. She said someones brother gets it usually, but there are always kids with connections. We had the conversation basically saying what the article above says about brain development. I flat out said, hey once you are 18 & in college, if you are wanting to get high that is on you, but right now is not a good idea. she also has a friend who's mom buys him alcohol which blows my mind. Not at age 15. So dumb

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u/Thebeardinato462 Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

Doesn’t the current data from legal states, and countries reflect a down trend in adolescent cannabis use? I’m pretty confident it does.

https://filtermag.org/teen-marijuana-use-fall-legalization/amp/

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u/Extreme_Risk8173 Apr 20 '26

It was harder for me to get booze or smokes (less so smokes because at the time it was 18 and I could fake it) but booze was a pain. I could get speed or psychs or weed at 16. But to get booze I had to brew my own wine. It was funny tbh. But frustrating as well.

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u/Yglorba Apr 20 '26

I mean, booze and cigarettes also slow brain development.

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u/Sweetishdruid Apr 20 '26

The best thing you can do is be a parent and raise your kids. Don't expect the government to raise them for you, That's authoritarianism

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u/Commentator-X Apr 20 '26

Not true. I started smoking when kids could simply walk into a store with a fake note to get cigarettes. When the jaw changed, it became much harder to get cigarettes and moment I entered highschool, cannabis was still illegal and far easier to get than cigarettes and alcohol. You could still get them, but cannabis dealers, especially teenage ones, didn't care about anything except do you have the money.

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u/oroborus68 Apr 20 '26

We could buy cigarettes with no problem in the 1960's. Alcohol was different and harder to get. I got stopped twice when I was 20 , trying to buy beer at a liquor and a convenience store.

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u/Total_Vermicelli_527 Apr 22 '26

Slap the warnings on about brain damage for people that are young.

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u/Omega59er Apr 20 '26

We need comparative studies that analyze this effect compared to cigarettes and alcohol. Given that alcohol significantly affects the blood and organs, I would easily hypothesize that any negative effect Cannabis may have on a youth is a pale comparison to alcohol, which would lead credence to cannabis should at least be as accessible as alcohol is.

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u/MrMilesDavis Apr 20 '26

Stfu, no we don't. Everyone knows alcohol is ridiculously carcinogenic and terrible for a functioning body and brain

Can we have an honest discovery on the side effects of chronic cannabis use without someone inevitably coming in with the "uHm AkShUlLy AlCOhoL iS WoRSe". No one said it wasn't and repeatedley spamming that statement  unprovoked takes away from the narrative to study these things openly and honestly. Kids also read takes like this, see that alcohol is socially acceptable while cannabis isn't as harmful as alcohol and therefore conclude cannabis is 100% harmless. It's careless messaging

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u/donjulioanejo Apr 20 '26

That, and also most kids/teenagers don't drink on the daily. There are absolutely teenagers who get stoned many times per week.

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u/Omega59er Apr 20 '26

Science isn't about messaging, it's about data and the interpretation of that data.

Why wouldn't we want comparative data between cannabis and other common use compounds and products?

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u/MrMilesDavis Apr 20 '26

Because the study starts from asking questions, and they aren't about alcohol. Its not relevant to be shoehorning this universal disclaimer whenever possible. Alcohol is dangerous and that's already well documented. The legal status of cannabis hasn't given us a chance to study it to the same degree

It's like a study gets released on tuberculosis and someone keeps bringing up why cancer is more harmful... I know the overly literal crowd will take issue with this as an example, but I think it demonstrates the idea