Here are the states where teens smoke the most pot

As marijuana becomes increasingly legal across the U.S., are more American teens using cannabis, and how do usage rates vary by state?

A recent report from Oxford Treatment Center explored those questions by comparing data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drugs Use and Mental Health for 2016 to 2017, which was the most recent dataset available.

What did the report indicate? Well, there are some considerable differences among U.S. states when it comes to their share of young people (17 and younger) who use marijuana. Utah, for instance, came at the bottom of the list (9.2 percent) while its immediate neighbor, Colorado, came in on top (17 percent).

Nationally, the share of younger Americans who had used marijuana in the past year declined slightly from 2016 to 2017, though some states saw double-digit year-over-year increases, such as Massachusetts, Vermont, Washington, and Illinois — all states where recreational marijuana is or will soon be legal.

You can check out how your state ranked in the infographic below.

Does legalization cause more teens to use marijuana?

There’s no evidence that conclusively shows legalization causes more teens to start using marijuana. In fact, a 2018 report from the Colorado Department of Public Safety showed that marijuana use among teens hadn’t significantly changed in the years since the state became the first to legalize recreational marijuana.