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Young people deserve honest, accurate, age-appropriate information about cannabis. Parents, caregivers, educators, and healthcare professionals also need reliable information to answer questions and have meaningful conversations with them. 

For decades, protecting children was one of the most powerful arguments used to justify cannabis prohibition. Drug education focused heavily on preventing cannabis use through warnings that it would lead to other drugs, cause permanent brain damage, or result in legal consequences that could jeopardize a young person’s future.

The landscape young people and their families are navigating today is very different. Cannabis may be legal for adults in their state, a parent, sibling, classmate, or grandparent may be a medical cannabis patient, and cannabis products may look very different from the cannabis adults remember. Young people may also encounter information about cannabis through social media long before a parent, teacher, doctor, or other trusted adult raises the subject.

The increase in youth cannabis use that opponents of changing cannabis laws warned about did not happen. Among U.S. high school students, past-month cannabis use fell from 23.1 percent in 2011 to 12.9 percent in 2025, a decline of about 44 percent, while lifetime use fell from 39.9 percent in 2011 to 25.5 percent in 2025. But preventing youth access and use is only one part of protecting young people. Education about accidental ingestion, impaired driving, frequent or early nonmedical use, brain development, self-medication, intoxicating hemp products, unregulated products, social media claims, advertising, dependence, and misinformation must also be priorities.

Some young people may turn to cannabis to cope with pain, anxiety, sleep problems, trauma, or other physical or emotional symptoms. Unsupervised cannabis use is not risk-free, but it may signal an unmet health need that deserves attention, conversation, and appropriate care rather than simply punishment. Some children and adolescents are also medical cannabis patients themselves. Families caring for children with serious health conditions should not have to navigate educational materials that assume every young person’s cannabis use or exposure is recreational, inappropriate, or problematic.

Pediatric medical cannabis, self-medication, accidental ingestion, and adult cannabis use in the home are different circumstances that require different information and responses. Honest, age-appropriate cannabis education must recognize those differences while still addressing legitimate concerns about youth health and safety.

The Next Generation Award recognizes education that helps young people, parents, caregivers, schools, healthcare professionals, and communities address cannabis honestly and responsibly. Strong youth education provides credible information, encourages communication, helps prevent unintended access, supports informed decision-making, and recognizes the difference between medical and nonmedical cannabis use.

The 2026 nominees, the New York State Office of Cannabis Management and Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP), are rethinking how cannabis education can better reflect the questions young people and families are actually facing

Learn more about the Next Generation Award!

MEET THE NEXT GENERATION AWARD NOMINEES

New York State Office of Cannabis Management

The New York State Office of Cannabis Management created Cannabis Honestly, a statewide education campaign designed for young people and the parents, caregivers, and other trusted adults in their lives. Rather than beginning with assumptions about what young people needed to hear, the Office began by listening.

Input from young people and adults helped shape resources addressing health effects, cannabis laws, safe storage, regulated and unregulated products, impaired driving, overconsumption, and when to seek help. The campaign reflects an important shift in cannabis education by giving families tools to have informed conversations before questions become crises.

Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, through its Get Sensible resources, brings another important perspective to youth cannabis education by including young people themselves in the conversation. Its cannabis education materials emphasize realistic, evidence-based, and nonjudgmental information for young people, parents, caregivers, educators, and other trusted adults.

The approach recognizes that effective education has to do more than tell young people what not to do. It also has to give them information they can use to understand risk, make decisions, reduce harm, recognize when cannabis use may be connected to another health or emotional concern, and ask for help when they need it.

FROM “JUST SAY NO” TO “JUST SAY KNOW”

Youth cannabis education has to reflect the world young people are actually navigating. That means moving beyond fear-based messages and giving young people credible information they can use to understand risk, ask questions, recognize when they need help, and make safer decisions. It also means recognizing that cannabis may enter a young person’s life in very different ways, including through family members, medical use, self-medication, or experimentation. Effective education should help young people and the adults who care for them understand those differences rather than treating every situation the same

The nominees for the 2026 Next Generation Award reflect an important evolution in cannabis safety. Protecting the next generation is not simply about keeping cannabis away from young people, but about ensuring that they have the information and tools they need to make safe choices about cannabis now and as they move into adulthood.

Learn more about the nominees & don't forget to cast your vote for the 2026 Next Generation Award through October 25.