Some encouraging survey results here, to the effect that not only is overall substance abuse by teens is down in 2014, but pot use is down despite medical marijuana and recreational marijuana laws being passed.
Teen marijuana use falls as more states legalize
Drug and alcohol use was down across the board in 2014.
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Probably because they've all graduated to meth and heroin.
Only tangentially related, but e-cig use is taking off among 8th graders – 1 in 5, I think, smoked an e-cig in the preceding month.
Regarding marijuana laws and substances use – are you arguing a LACK of causation?
+Mark Means There are graphs in there for those, too. Either similarly down or too small a number to tell.
+John E. Bredehoft Looking at the underlying data (http://www.drugabuse.gov/trends-statistics/monitoring-future/monitoring-future-study-trends-in-prevalence-various-drugs), e-cig data is only included starting in 2014 so it's difficult to trend. Currently for 12th Grader it;s 17.6% in the last month, vs. 13.6% for regular cigarettes. What's unclear, of course, is the overlap between them, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of the overall drop in regular ciggie use is from a shift to e-cigs.
I am suggesting the data indicates no sign that more lax marijuana laws, including legal access for some or all adults, is leading to an increased use of marijuana by minors.
+Mark Means Actually, looking at that same underlying data, Meth use is steady in the last 4 years (0.5% using in the last month), as is heroin (0.4%).