Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.


  
 A jar of cannabis at a Good Meds medical cannabis center in Lakewood, Colo. (Photo by Matthew Staver/For The Washington Post) 
  
 Alcohol seems to act as a substitute for marijuana when people hit the minimum legal drinking age, a recent study found. 
  
 The study, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found — perhaps not surprisingly — that alcohol consumption spikes among people just over the age of 21. But it also found that marijuana use experienced a substantial drop at the same age. 
  
 The finding is important to the debate about public policy to regulate the substances. As economic substitutes, how strictly marijuana laws are enforced would affect alcohol use — and vice versa — because people will tend to use whichever substance is cheapest or more available. 
  
 [Oregon celebrates with free weed as recreational marijuana becomes legal] 
  
 Previous studies found murky evidence about whether the two act as substitutes or complements. This study, which looked at five years' worth of survey data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, looked directly at the drinking age as a threshold for comparison between the months before and after people's 21st birthdays. 
  
 It found the probability of having consumed alcohol in the past 30 days increases by about 16 percent just as young people have legal access, whereas marijuana decreases by 10 percent at the same time — indicating that it is, in fact, a substitute. 
  
 The phenomenon is also more pronounced among women, according to the study. Although men had higher rates of alcohol and marijuana usage, the frequency of marijuana use decreased 7.5 percent at the drinking age for men, compared to a decrease of 15 percent for women. 
  
 For Ben Crost, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Illinois, the results of the study means there's a trade-off in what illicit substance policy can be enforced. 
  
 [Alcohol use, binge drinking continues to fall among underage] 
  
 "If you think alcohol is much more harmful to people's health, then you should probably restrict alcohol use," Crost said in a statement. "If you think marijuana is more harmful, then you might want to consider loosening the restrictions for alcohol." 
  
 Public opinion polls have shown that Americans view alcohol as far more dangerous than marijuana, by a nearly 5-to-1 margin. Studies have padded this opinion, showing that alcohol poses a greater danger both to users and to the public. 
  
 The opinion is not universally held, though, as some, including U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, have expressed disagreement. 
  
 Read more: 
  
 Harvard researchers tested 23 online symptom checkers. Most got failing grades. Here’s how they stack up 
  
 Should you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes? Most Americans say yes. 
  
 Most antipsychotic drugs prescribed to teens without mental health diagnosis, study says 
  
 This is what drinking too much water during exercise does to your body ||||| URBANA, Ill. - A recent study looked at marijuana and alcohol use in people between the ages of 18 and 24. It's probably not surprising that the results show a drastic increase in alcohol consumption in people just over 21; after all, that's the minimum legal age to drink. What University of Illinois economist Ben Crost found remarkable is that, at the same age, there was an equally dramatic drop in marijuana use. 
  
 "Alcohol appears to be a substitute for marijuana. This sudden decrease in the use of marijuana is because they suddenly have easy access to alcohol," Crost said. 
  
 Crost and Santiago Guerrero used five years of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Survey participants estimated how many days in the past 30 that they had alcoholic drinks or used marijuana. Because the precise age of each respondent was not known, data on the averages of substance use by month of age was obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 
  
 The minimum legal drinking age provided a threshold for comparison. 
  
 "Whenever there is a discontinuous threshold where something changes, it provides a way to identify a causal effect," Crost said. "You can compare people right above and right below the threshold. They should be very similar in all other respects, except for that one difference. 
  
 "In this case, we looked at the cutoff that occurs when people, overnight get much easier access to alcohol. People who are 20 years and 11 months old are basically the same as people who are 21 with that one exception. Nothing should change about people's preference because people don't overnight lose their preference for marijuana. They use it or lose it over the long run but not from one month to the next." 
  
 Crost said that all of the costs and benefits from policies designed to reduce alcohol consumption, such as the minimum legal drinking age or liquor taxes, need to be assessed. 
  
 "We need to take this possible substitution behavior into account," Crost said. "Marginally lowering the minimum legal drinking age would decrease the probability of marijuana consumption in young adults by about 10 percent. So, policies aimed at restricting alcohol consumption among young adults are likely to have the unintended consequence of increasing the use of illegal drugs, such as marijuana. 
  
 "If you think alcohol is much more harmful to people's health, then you should probably restrict alcohol use. If you think marijuana is more harmful, then you might want to consider loosening the restrictions for alcohol," he said. 
  
 The study also analyzed men and women separately. Although men have higher baseline use levels of both alcohol and marijuana, the effect of the minimum legal drinking age is larger for women. For example, the frequency of marijuana use for men decreased 7.5 percent. Women's frequency of use decreased 15 percent. 
  
 "The effect of alcohol availability on marijuana use: Evidence from the minimum legal drinking age" by Benjamin Crost and Santiago Guerrero was published in the Journal of Health Economics. 
  
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Worried your kid can't kick his pot-smoking habit? Wait until he hits 21. According to a new study, people drastically boost their alcohol consumption at that age—big surprise there—and cut their pot use at the same time. University of Illinois researchers analyzed five years of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, along with responses from survey participants aged 18 to 24 who estimated the number of times they'd consumed alcohol or used marijuana over the previous 30 days. Researchers found marijuana use was basically stable among people 20 years and 11 months old. But almost overnight, when people turned 21 and gained easy access to alcohol, the likelihood that they had consumed alcohol within 30 days jumped by 16%, while pot use fell by 10%, reports the Washington Post. "Nothing should change about people's preference because people don't overnight lose their preference for marijuana," says researcher Ben Crost. "Alcohol appears to be a substitute for marijuana." Though men had higher rates of alcohol and pot use, cases of pot smoking fell 7.5% among men and 15% among women around age 21. Crost suggests officials should reassess the minimum legal drinking age. "If you think marijuana is more harmful [than booze], then you might want to consider loosening the restrictions for alcohol," he writes, per EurekAlert, noting restrictions on booze appear to be pushing young adults to use illegal drugs. "Lowering the minimum legal drinking age would decrease the probability of marijuana consumption in young adults by about 10%." (A study recently discovered what happens when you mix booze and pot.)