After remaining fairly steady for 14 years, the number of high school seniors who believe there is great risk associated with occasional marijuana use has dropped each year since 2009, according to the Monitoring the Future study.
That drop was accompanied by an increase in use. The prevalence of marijuana use in those 12th graders’ lifetimes has gone up 7.6% since 2009, halting a decline that lasted over a decade, the study shows.
There were approximately 16,000 seniors among the 45,449 students who took part in the Monitoring the Future survey in 2012. The survey is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and conducted by University of Michigan investigators.