The War On Drugs Was Supposed To Protect Kids—It’s Doing The Opposite
People often assume that legalizing drugs will make it easier for minors to obtain them. The truth might shock you.
What about the children?
You have likely heard this question ad nauseam in political discussions. It has become a common refrain in discussions of policy – whether about drugs, gun control, or even economics.
In some instances, it’s a manipulation tactic used to play on our emotions to support horrible policies. After all, nobody wants to see children harmed, right?
But in some cases, it’s a valid question – especially when it comes to drug policy. One of my followers brought this up on social media. “If it's legal, it will be harder to keep kids from doing it,” he wrote.
But the truth is quite different when you take a closer look.
Let’s start with booze.
How Easy Is it for Minors to Get a Beer?
In his book, “Chasing the Scream,” author Johann Hari noted that “a large number of American teens in surveys explained that they found it easier to buy marijuana today than to buy beer or cigarettes.”
According to the prevailing wisdom, legalizing alcohol and tobacco would make it easier for minors to obtain. But how could it possibly be easier to obtain marijuana when it is illegal?
The answer is simpler than you think.
Hari had a conversation with a former police officer named Fred Martens, who told him an interesting story. He was waiting in a parking lot outside of a shopping center to buy narcotics and bust the seller. He was a superfan of the War on Drugs, and arrested drug dealers with glee. But this story began him on a path to changing his mind.
While waiting in the parking lot, a kid who appeared to be about 12 years old approached him. “Do me a favor,” the kid asked. “Could you buy me a bottle of wine in the liquor store?”
You’ve probably been there. Hopefully, you said “no.”
Well, so did Marten.
“Fred kicked him in the ass and snapped, ‘Get out of here.’ He went back to waiting for a drug dealer so he could make his buy and make his bust,” Hari wrote.
But “that’s when the realization hit me,” he told me. “I’m saying to myself—this kid needs me to get him a bottle of liquor, when he can go get any drug he wants in the parking lot without me. What was better regulated—the liquor, or the drugs in this parking lot? It was . . . an epiphany. What is this all about?” The insight stayed with him as a source of doubt for years, and it made him come out, in the end, for legalization.
The author himself was struck by the revelation. “Nobody in my nephews’ schools, it occurred to me as Fred talked, is selling Budweiser or Jack Daniel’s. But there are plenty of people selling weed and pills. Why? Because the people who sell alcohol in our culture have a really strong incentive not to sell to teenagers: if they do, they lose their license and their business,” Hari wrote.
Obviously, street dealers don’t have the same qualms.
The author further points out that “Some 21 percent of Dutch teenagers have tried marijuana; in the United States, it is 45 percent.” Marijuana is legal in the Netherlands.
But let’s get into some more numbers to drive the point home.
Marijuana Use Among Minors
Since several states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, we have plenty of data. The upshot is that in these states, marijuana use among minors has either decreased or remained the same.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), conducted from 2013 to 2022, found that cannabis use among youth aged 12–17 did not change significantly across the study period, indicating stability in legalized states. Similarly, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) from 2011 to 2021, covering 47 states, found no evidence that recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) increased youth marijuana use.
But a notable finding comes from the Monitoring the Future survey in 2021, which reported significant decreases in past-year marijuana use among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders compared to 2020: From 11.4 percent to 7.1 percent for 8th graders, 28.0 percent to 17.3 percent for 10th graders, and 35.2 percent to 30.5 percent for 12th graders. These declines occurred after these states legalized marijuana.
State-specific data further supports this. In Washington, the Healthy Youth Survey from 2008 to 2021 showed overall decreases in cannabis use among grades 8, 10, and 12. For instance, past 30-day use prevalence decreased by 22 percent in grade 8 and 12.7 percent in grade 10, with no effect in grade 12.
We can attribute the declines to several factors. Legalization often comes with stricter regulations on sales, reducing black market access for minors. For example, the Illinois Youth Survey found lower use among teens in areas with dispensaries because they had every reason not to sell to children, as Martens’ story suggests.
As we can see, marijuana use among minors actually drops when the state stops banning it. The same is true of other street drugs in countries that have decriminalized or legalized them. When the product is sold in stores, there are more safeguards preventing minors from obtaining them.
Ultimately, making sure minors do not use drugs falls to the parents and the community. Yes, stores are far less likely to sell to children if they risk running afoul of the law. But even with these barriers, some minors will still be able to obtain them – especially if their parents are not paying attention.
As I stated previously, nobody wants to see children become addicted to narcotics. It is a valid concern. But the War on Drugs is not the solution. We already have laws prohibiting the sale of these drugs to children. But drug dealers are already breaking these laws – and will continue to do so.
When drugs are legalized, the drug dealers go out of business, for the most part. When minors have to resort to asking adults in parking lots to obtain drugs, it is a much better outcome than having access to people who will eagerly sell to them.
The War on Drugs has been a dreadful failure when it comes to protecting children and everyone else. Its proponents have used the fear of harming children to support it. But it’s evident that this argument does not hold water. It is time to change course.