Although he was falling further into depression and cutting himself, Aubree Adams’ 14-year-old son reassured her that his marijuana use was no big deal.

“He would say, ‘Mom, Mom, it’s natural. It’s completely harmless. Everybody is doing it — you’re the only one not smoking it,'” the Pueblo, Colorado, mother told LifeZette.

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That was a year ago. The family has since seen their son turn from edibles to smoking pot routinely. He has gone through a deep depression, a full-fledged suicide attempt, other mental health issues — and multiple attempts at rehab. He now lives with a host family and is part of an intensive addiction recovery program out-of-state — to get him away from the marijuana culture that Adams says is consuming the state and the kids of Colorado.

‘Harmless’? That’s Hooey
The industry, this mom said, keeps pushing marijuana as safe. Adams is convinced that couldn’t be further from the truth, and now a new study may back her up.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento found that in states where marijuana has been legalized, teens’ perception of the drug is that it is harmless — and they’re using it more.

Related: My State Legalized Pot — and I’m Really Mad

In Washington State specifically, eighth-graders’ perception of marijuana’s harmfulness fell by about 14 percent from before legalization (2010 to 2012) to afterward (2013 to 2015). Similarly, among 10th-graders, the perception of harmfulness decreased about 16 percent.

Additionally, the number of kids reporting marijuana use in the previous month rose 2 percent among eighth-graders and about 4 percent among 10th-graders. In states where marijuana hasn’t been legalized, teens’ perception of harm fell by 5 to 7 percent and their use of the drug only increased about 1 percent.

Related: ‘This is Not Your Father’s Marijuana’

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Interestingly, the researchers didn’t see any significant before-and-after-legalization differences among students in Colorado. But they believe it may be because adolescents there were exposed to a robust medical marijuana industry before recreational use was ever legalized.

Needed: Prevention Programs
The study authors recommend that states consider developing evidence-based prevention programs aimed at adolescents before they legalize the recreational use of marijuana, because there are health risks — especially for adolescents.

Even then, the risks are often “contested by proponents and opponents of legalization, making it difficult to provide broadly accepted messages about the risks of marijuana use,” the researchers stated in JAMA Pediatrics. “Health advice also has to compete with marketing by a legal marijuana industry that, like the alcohol industry, wants to grow its market by increasing regular use and downplaying its health risks.”

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They argue that pot users need to be informed about “the approximate doubling of the risks of a collision if they drive while intoxicated, especially if they use both alcohol and marijuana. Regular users need to be aware that they can develop dependence. The risk for dependence is about 1 in 10 for those who use marijuana and 1 in 6 for those who first use in adolescence.”

Also: “Marijuana users also need to know that dependent users have more anxiety, depression, and psychotic disorders and are more likely to leave school early, to be unemployed as adults, and [to] experience downward social mobility in mid-adulthood. Debate will no doubt continue over whether regular use is a contributory cause to these outcomes or if these outcomes occur because regular users have a higher risk of poorer outcomes before they start to use.”

Related: Marijuana Edibles: States Bite Off More than They Can Chew

Either way, Adams is thankful more people are willing to have the conversation. “My son is still alive and he’s in recovery, so I’m the lucky one. Not everyone gets that chance. I don’t have the influence, I don’t have the money — when I speak out, I’m ridiculed and bullied. I’ve had people blow pot in my face. But they can’t hurt me like it did watching my son go through what he did.”

Since 2012, Alaska, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., have approved marijuana for recreational use.