Some Young Adults in Washington, Colorado Object to Marijuana Age Restrictions

Some young adults under age 21 are not happy with new laws in Colorado and Washington that allow the recreational use of marijuana only for those who are at least 21 years old, according to U.S. News.

Aaron Houston, Executive Director of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), a group with chapters on college campuses nationwide, said,  “The irony is that some of the most enthusiastic people about legalizing marijuana work to pass legalization measures that don’t actually benefit them … We’ve seen this in Colorado and Washington. It is an ongoing problem.”

Brett Engle, president of a SSDP chapter in Denver, said that during the legalization campaign, “many students asked if the age would be 18 and were disappointed when they found out it would be 21. It seems silly that you can go to war to die for your country, but you can’t have a beer. Considering that cannabis is even less dangerous than alcohol, I think there is even more reason for it to be available to all adults.”

Two of the largest national marijuana reform organizations say they will not try to lower the age limit. Mason Tvert, a former co-director of the Campaign for Amendment 64, the Colorado marijuana legalization initiative, said the measure capped the age at 21 so that it would match the state’s alcohol law.

Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of the pro-legalization group NORML, said the group thinks access to marijuana should be similar to that of alcohol. He told the publication, “If society deems 18 years old the age of ‘consent,’ fine. If society wants to stick with 21 years of age, fine with us too.”