Pretend that you are a writer for the Columbus Dispatch. Write an essay that summarizes your opinion to two questions:
Has marijuana use in the United States changed over time?
What factors have played a role in shaping American attitudes toward marijuana (e.g., media, state legalization laws, )?
Recall that your boss requires you to support your opinion using the three sources and to discuss current marijuana use by Americans as well as historical factors.
When composing your essay, try focusing on:
Evaluating the evidence in your sources to support your response (consider the approaches utilized in the Module 2 Writing Guides, as well as Discussions #3-5).
Paraphrasing (not quoting) evidence and appropriately incorporating in-text citations (consider the approaches utilized in the Module 2 Writing Guides and Discussion #5).
Continuing to apply the writing skills we developed in Module 1 – have you expressed your ideas clearly and concisely?
Think about this module’s grammar focus (punctuation use).
Format guidelines: Arial font size 11; single-spaced; 1” margins; Length: ¾ page minimum – 1 page maximum
Please cite any sources through in-text citations and include a reference list containing the full citation for each source following the end of your essay (it’s okay if your references extend to a second page). Make sure that your references are formatted correctly.


Sources:
1. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425763/#:~:text=Interestingly%2C%20since%202002%20the%20use,see%20Table%203%2D1).
The popularity of cannabis has ebbed and flowed over the past century. Despite being outlawed in several states in the early 1900s and being federally prohibited in 1937, cannabis remained relatively obscure until the 1960s, when an upsurge in use among adolescents and young adults brought the drug into the mainstream. Since the early 1970s, two surveys, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) and Monitoring the Future, have provided nationally representative data on self-reported use of cannabis. The NSDUH (called the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse until 2002) has polled Americans 12 years of age and older since 1971, and Monitoring the Future has polled high school seniors since 1976, adding 8th- and 10th-graders in 1991 (CBHSQ, 2014; ICPSR, 2016). Both national surveys include questions that ask respondents whether they have ever used cannabis and if they have used cannabis within the past year or within the past 30 days. These data have been used to categorize users, with those reporting use within the past month often considered to be “active” or “current” users. Monitoring the Future also asks youth about how easily they could access cannabis, whether they approve of its use, and how risky they perceive it to be. Other national surveys of interest include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which surveys the health-risk behaviors of 9th- through 12th-grade students on a biannual basis,1 and the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,2 which collects state and local data regarding health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and the use of preventive services. It is of note that many surveillance surveys differ in their design and methodology, which often limits the ability to compare and compile data across studies.

The prevalence of cannabis use peaked in the late 1970s, when more than one-third of high school seniors (37 percent in 1976) and one in eight Americans over 12 years old (12.8 percent in 1979) reported past-month use (Johnston et al., 2016). Self-reported past-month use declined throughout the 1980s and by 1992 was just one-third of the 1970s peak, both among high school seniors (12.1 percent) and the general population (4.4 percent). The recorded decline in use did not last long. The mid-1990s saw rapid increases, with use by high school seniors nearly doubling within just the 5 years from 1992 (11.9 percent) to 1997 (23.7 percent). Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the rates of use largely stagnated, with trends among youth and the general population moving roughly in parallel (Johnston et al., 2016).

The years since 2007 have seen steady year-over-year increases in general population past-month use, rising from 5.8 percent to 8.4 percent in 2014 (a 45 percent increase). There is no single clear explanation for the post-2007 increases in use. Hypothesized causes include declining potency-adjusted prices on the illicit market; the proliferation of medical cannabis laws, especially those that allow for sale at brick-and-mortar dispensaries; and changing public perceptions about the harms of cannabis use (Sevigny et al., 2014).

Today, cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in the United States (in terms of past-month users), trailed by prescription-type drugs used for nonmedical purposes, such as pain relievers (3.8 million), tranquilizers (1.9m), and stimulants (1.7m), and by prohibited drugs such as cocaine (1.9m), hallucinogens (1.2m), and heroin (0.3m) (CBHSQ, 2016a). A recent survey showed that the primary use of cannabis in the United States remains recreational (89.5 percent of adult cannabis users), with only 10.5 percent reporting use solely for medical purposes, and 36.1 percent reporting a mixed medical/recreational use (Schauer et al., 2016).

In 2015, an estimated 22.2 million of more than 265 million Americans 12 years of age or older reported having used cannabis in the past month (8.3 percent) (CBHSQ, 2016a). Cannabis use is most prevalent among young people ages 18 to 25 (19.8 percent using in the past month) (CBHSQ, 2016a). Interestingly, since 2002 the use of cannabis has decreased among 12- to 17-year-olds, while it has markedly increased in the senior population, that is, those over 55 years (Azofeifa et al., 2016).

Males are nearly twice as likely (10.6 percent) to use cannabis as females (6.2 percent) (see Table 3-1). Black Americans use cannabis at the highest rate among major ethnic groups (10.7 percent), followed by whites (8.4 percent) and Hispanics (7.2 percent) (CBHSQ, 2016b). Use is also more common among lower-income Americans and those without college degrees (Davenport and Caulkins, 2016).



2. America’s Marijuana Evolution. https://www.thirdway.org/report/americas-marijuana-evolution
Today, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, eight of which also permit recreational use, and another 17 allow the limited use of non-intoxicating marijuana extracts to treat certain medical conditions (like seizure disorders in young children).3 Roughly 201 million Americans (60% of the country) currently live in states where marijuana is legal for general medical use—up from 62 million ten years ago and 32 million ten years before that. And nearly 70 million (21%) live in states where recreational use by adults is also allowed, up from 12 million in 2012 and 0 in 2011.4 All told, roughly 98% of Americans live in a state that has legalized some form of marijuana—up from 0% just 21 years ago.


3. Marijuana legalization and historical trends in marijuana use among US residents aged 12–25: results from the 1979–2016 National Survey on drug use and health
After controlling for age, cohort and other covariates, the estimated period effect indicated declines in marijuana use in 1979–1992 and 2001–2006, and increases in 1992–2001 and 2006–2016. The period effect was positively and significantly associated with the proportion of people covered by Medical Marijuana Laws (MML) (correlation coefficients: 0.89 for total sample, 0.81 for males and 0.93 for females, all three p values < 0.01), but was not significantly associated with the Recreational Marijuana Laws (RML). The estimated cohort effect showed a historical decline in marijuana use in those who were born in 1954–1972, a sudden increase in 1972–1984, followed by a decline in 1984–2003.