Casual marijuana use in teens isn’t harmless. Here’s why.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), analyzed data from more than 68,000 teens involved in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health,

Specifically, teens who use cannabis recreationally were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with depression and to have suicidal thoughts than those who don't use pot at all. Teens who have cannabis use disorder were four times more likely to have mental health disorders than non-users.

The researchers also found a link between cannabis use and poor academic performance, skipping school and legal issues. Cannabis use also tends to feed into an unhealthy cycle with conditions such as depression and anxiety.

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SW-User

If you've ever taken a statistics class, the first thing they hammer into you is that correlation is not the same thing as causation.

The example my teacher used was this: It is a statistical fact that almost every person who has suffered a shark attack has eaten ice cream within a week of being attacked by a shark. Does that mean ice cream causes shark attacks? No. You can only get attacked by a shark while swimming. You swim when it is hot. You eat ice cream when it is hot.

Yes, people who use drugs and/or alcohol are more likely to be depressed than people who don't. Does that mean that drugs/alcohol cause depression? No. It just means depressed people try to self-medicate.

The government has done these same studies with music and video games over the years and every time they arrive at these same results, using this same tactic, knowing that most people won't think about it for longer than a second. Statistics are often used, without context or explanation, to push a specific narrative. And while their numbers may be factually correct, they are not relevant to the argument they are trying to make.