Researchers at Ohio State University’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center surveyed Ohio’s K-12 principals last August to see what concerns they had about marijuana legalization and how they anticipated it would impact their students.
Ahead of this upcoming school year, the center surveyed principals again to see what they actually experienced in the last year and what concerns remain, reported ABC 13 in Toledo.
Jana Hrdinová, the center’s administrative director, said principals are important voices and observers in the conversation surrounding marijuana and children.
“Principals have a pretty good worldview of their individual schools and how students are performing,” Hrdinová said.
She said one thing that concerned her personally in this year’s survey is the perception among principals that students’ physical and mental health quality has decreased over the last year.
“That doesn’t mean that it was caused by marijuana legalization alone, but there’s definitely a trend where principals are seeing some deterioration,” Hrdinová said. “Whether it’s marijuana related, whether it’s COVID aftershocks, we do not know that for sure. But there are definitely concerns that principals are expressing about the well-being of their students.”
The survey found that some concerns principals expressed heading into the last school year didn’t pan out as they expected.
Principals didn’t see as significant an impact in areas like dropout rates, students’ behavior at school, and overall school safety, the survey showed.
Still, close to 80% of high school principals and 38% of middle school principals considered their students’ marijuana use outside of school to be a problem. They also raised concerns about the impact of parental marijuana use on their students. Researchers said more studies are needed on that front.
While some principals reported increasing education around marijuana and general drug use, a vast majority agreed that schools need more resources and funding for marijuana-specific education.
