Troubled Boys Will Abandon Pot When It's Deem...(likely to be involved in marijuana use i...),Health

The study doesn't speculate about whether the teens who stopped smoking pot turned to other drugs. It also doesn't examine the gender differences in how teens reacted to drug-use trends.

Steven Shoptaw, a licensed psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the study relies on some of the best available statistics, but one weakness is that it looks at averages across the country. "Think of averaging wind speeds across the country to develop an average wind speed for the U.S." said Shoptaw, who studies drug use. "While the U.S. average wind speed tells you something, you don't really know what it tells you, and you certainly can't rely on the measure to understand what is happening in specific areas of the country."

As for the differences between boys and girls in terms of intractable pot use in the face of societal trends, he said they have little meaning, because boys are more likely to engage in socially deviant behaviors like pot smoking.

More information

There's more for teens about pot use from the National Institutes of Health.

SOURCES: Michelle Little, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, Arizona State University, Tempe; Steven Shoptaw, Ph.D., psychologist and professor, University of California, Los Angeles; March 2008, Prevention Science