If Cannabis Legalization Sends The Wrong Message To Teens, Why Aren't They Listening?

Kids and pot dwr

The 2013 Monitoring the Future survey results are out, and you’re going to be hearing about them in the news. The Government will be parceling out bits and pieces of information to the media in ways that are useful to their prohibition story.

What you won’t hear:

* Past 30-day use of marijuana for 12th graders actually decreased from 2012-2013. This, despite all the legalization stuff.

* Young people used tobacco much less than marijuana, despite the legal status of tobacco.

What you will hear:

* 60 percent of 12th graders do not view regular marijuana use as harmful. My reaction… and? Maybe they’re learning something. Remember that, as far as I know, the word “harmful” isn’t defined in the survey. If someone asked me if water was harmful, I’d probably say “no.” And yet, you can drown in water and overdose from it. Words matter, even to 12th graders, and failing to agree that something is “harmful” is not the same as affirmatively stating that it is 100% “harmless” in all situations.

* One third of 12th graders get their marijuana from someone else’s medical marijuana…. Um… think about it. Would you rather they had gotten it from a criminal dealer?



If Marijuana Legalization Sends The Wrong Message To Teenagers,
Why Aren't They Listening?
Jacob Sullum, Contributor Op/Ed 12/18/2013
I cover the war on drugs from a conscientious objector's perspective.

Prohibitionists commonly warn that it’s dangerous even to discuss legalizing marijuana, whether for medical or general use, because such talk sends “the wrong message” to the youth of America, encouraging them to smoke pot. If so, you might expect that the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, approved by voters more than a year ago, would have a noticeable impact on marijuana use by teenagers. Yet the latest data from the government-sponsored Monitoring the Future Study, released today, indicate that teenagers observed the momentous events in Colorado and Washington, absorbed the deleterious message supposedly sent by legalization, and continued smoking pot at pretty much the same rates as before.

Looking at annual, past-month, and “daily” use (meaning use on 20 or more of the previous 30 days) among eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders, you can see there were some slight increases and slight decreases, but none of the changes was stastistically significant. “ These findings should put to rest any claims that reforming marijuana laws and discussing the benefits will somehow contribute to more teens using marijuana,” says Mason Tvert, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). “It’s time for prohibition supporters to stop hiding behind teens when debating marijuana policy.”

Maybe not. Even though marijuana use among teenagers was essentially flat in the most recent survey, USA Today reports that “teens are shunning synthetic marijuana, such as K2 and Spice, but smoking more of the real thing”—I guess because that sounded good. “Young people are getting the wrong message from the medical marijuana and legalization campaigns,” drug czar Gil Kerlikowske says in the USA Today story. “If it’s continued to be talked about as a benign substance that has no ill effects, we’re doing a great disservice to young people by giving them that message.”

You have to give Kerlikowske credit (if that’s the right word) for being completely undaunted by contrary evidence. It is true that marijuana use among teenagers has been “drifting higher in recent years” (as the University of Michigan researchers who oversee the Monitoring the Future Study put it). But this upward drift began around 2007, whereas the first medical marijuana law (California’s) was enacted in 1996. In between, past-month use among high school seniors went up and down, but it did not exceed the 1996 rate until 2011, 15 years after cannabis was first legalized for medical use. It certainly does not look like marijuana reform is driving increases in adolescent pot smoking. If you dig a little deeper, comparing cannabis consumption trends in states with and without medical marijuana laws, there is little evidence that such legislation boosts pot smoking by teenagers.

A press release from the anti-pot group Project SAM notes with alarm that “one-third of high school seniors living in medical marijuana states obtained their marijuana from someone else’s medical recommendation.” That’s not terribly surprising, given that 70 percent of people who use narcotic painkillers for nonmedical purposes report that they got the pills from a relative or friend with a prescription. That does not mean the government should ban the medical use of narcotics. In any case, the relevant question is whether this sort of diversion increases overall marijuana use among teenagers. If it did, there should be discernible differences in underage consumption trends between states that allow medical use and states that don’t. So far there aren’t.

The potential for diversion to minors will be greater, of course, in states where pot buyers do not need a doctor’s note. At the same time, it will become more difficult for minors to purchase marijuana directly as state-licensed stores replace black-market dealers (assuming that transition is not impeded by excessive taxation and regulation). On balance, teenagers probably will find that pot is somewhat easier to obtain, just as alcohol is currently easier for them to obtain (although harder to buy from a retailer) than marijuana. I would therefore not be surprised if legalization is accompanied by an increase in marijuana consumption by teenagers, although not because of the message it sends so much as the increased access it brings.

No doubt prohibitionists like Kerlikowske will cite any such increase as evidence that they were right all along. But logically speaking, the possibility of diversion to minors does not count as an argument for criminalizing the production, sale, and use of marijuana any more than it counts as an argument for criminalizing the production, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages. And just as with adults, there is potential here for harm reduction if more pot smoking means less drinking.

Drinking, by the way, has been declining among teenagers since 1997, and cigarette smoking is less than half as common among high school seniors today as it was in 1976 (a downward trend than continued this year, despite the “gateway” threat allegedly posed by electronic cigarettes). So even if legalization of marijuana is followed by a short-term increase in pot smoking by teenagers, prohibition clearly is not necessary to address the problem of underage consumption. In fact, prohibition makes it harder to distinguish between adults and minors by handing over the business to retailers who never bother to card their customers. Citing the steady declines in underage alcohol and tobacco consumption, the MPP’s Tvert argues that “regulation clearly works and prohibition has clearly failed when it comes to protecting teens.”
[cross-posted at Hit & Run]

Teen Marijuana Use Stable, Annual Survey Finds Dec 18 2013
The annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use it out, and anyone trying to use the numbers to argue that marijuana reform is causing a spike in teen pot-smoking is going to have a hard sell.

Howard dwr: There’s more about kids and pot that is recently in the headlines. PBS is one source; http://tinyurl.com/n9u9tfy

But PBS and others who are carrying this story are not reporting it fully. Claims from the study;

“Researchers in Chicago observed the brains of teenagers who were heavy users of marijuana. In those individuals, memory-related structures in the brain appeared to shrink and collapse inward, possibly indicating a decrease in neurons.

These abnormalities were recorded two years after the teens stopped using marijuana, possibly indicating long-term effects, and look similar to schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities.”

Other carriers of this story also reported — often several paragraphs down — that researchers do not know if the brain abnormalities of the subjects observed existed before marijuana was consumed. Others questioned correlation and causation and that “more work needs to be done”. But PBS (and others) have left out those rather crucial caveats. By the way, one headline for this report said something like “Marijuana Alters The Brain For Life”. Even though the study suggested the abnormalities existed two years after the subjects stopped marijuana consumption. Two years=LIFE? Media fail.

Anyway, I think the NIDA was a partial funder of this research. That doesn’t raise any red flags, now does it…

Teen Drug Use Survey Figures Spark Marijuana Debate

Increasing Marijuana Use in High School Reported
A new federal report shows that the percentage of American high school students who smoke marijuana is slowly rising, while the use of alcohol and almost every other drug is falling.

Don’t look at the statistics behind the curtain. Booze and almost every other drug is losing money.

[ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmfwklFM-M]Holy underwear! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
Governor William J. Le Petomane

The prohibitionists are living in the “Airplane” movie…

Striker : Tell ‘em the gear is down and we’re ready to land.
Elaine : The gear is down and we’re ready to land.
Kramer : Alright, he’s on final now,
put out all runway lights except 9er.
Towerguy: Captain,
maybe we ought to turn on the search lights now.
MCrosky: No, that’s just what they’ll be expecting us to do

“At DEA, our mission is to fight drug trafficking in order to make drug use the most expensive, unpleasant, risky, and disreputable form of recreation a person could have.”
– Donnie Marshall, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Health officials are concerned by the steady increase and point to what they say is a growing body of evidence that adolescent brains, which are still developing, are susceptible to subtle changes caused by marijuana.

Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia

“We have spent over a trillion dollars trying to eradicate the world’s most beneficial plant off the face of the earth. Imagine what a better world this would be if that money had been spent on treatment, education and studying the medical benefits of marijuana.”
– Steve Hager – High Times Editor (1988 – 2003)

Michigan Senate Republicans Vote to Scapegoat Poor With Welfare Drug Test Bill

Or will you admit that the policies you’re promoting have nothing to do with road safety or science and are just a back door way to punish marijuana users?
Pete Guither, dwr
Why is this so hard?

I’d have to say living on earth is more risky than Ganja. DdC

Each day we spin around 1000 miles per hour. Plus traveling around the sun in one year is 67,000 mph. With no seat belts!

Prohibition logic is left at the doorstep. Cannabis has been used thousands of years. It was popular for kids as a cough medicine. The World’s Fair had Turkish Hash Parlors to enhance the experience. As who knows how many uses over the centuries with kids right there inhaling the smoke of their parents or taking the elixirs. There is NO evidence it does anything to cause brain damage in children.

antiquecannabisbook

On the other hand if abstinence does create a cannabinoid deficiency leading to larger fear centers in the brain. More obedience or reliance on authority to dictate. I can see why that might be a problem. To put it in perspective. If a non thinking obedient yes man is what the goal is, then pot might hinder that. If intelligent free thinking curious healthy minds are the goal. Then cannabis is the choice, and has been for centuries.

Conservatives Have Larger ‘Fear Centers’ in Their Brains

Ganja is for those not comfortable with herd mentalities. Conservatives cannabinoid systems are drying up from prohibition. That produces larger fear centers in their brains. More willing to follow blindly, especially authoritah. They would rather have laws tell them what is right and wrong. Or preachers, teachers, cops and politikans. Thinking for themselves is scary so they give up their rights to others.

Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency

Using Pot To Save Brains

If they go to all the trouble to create brain damage with prohibition abstinence, pollution and card board food. Why would they want a non white powder, nutritional renewable resource undoing years of dysfunction? The Profits are the new Prophets.

Does Weed Turbo-charge Outside The Box Thinking?

Oh that would be a problem for disciplinarians…

Think of the message being sent to the kids?