Failed drug tests holding back employment

By Randy Tucker

As the economy rebounds and jobs become more plentiful, local employers continue to complain that they can’t find workers to fill open positions, largely because they can’t find enough workers who can pass a drug test.

It’s a national epidemic based on new data from Quest Diagnostics, which found the percentage of American workers testing positive for illicit drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines increased for the second year in a row in 2014, following the first increase in more than a decade in 2013.

“American workers are increasingly testing positive for workforce drug use across almost all workforce categories,” said Dr. Barry Sample with Quest Diagnostics Employer Solutions. “These findings are especially concerning because they suggest that the recent focus on illicit marijuana use may be too narrow, and that other dangerous drugs are potentially making a comeback.”

After a decades-long decline, the rise of illicit drug use among U.S. workers is once again becoming a drag on employment by shrinking the pool of viable candidates.

And the Ohio Legislature’s recent approval of legislation that would legalize marijuana use for medical purposes under certain circumstances threatens to exacerbate the problem, although at least one local employer sees legalizing marijuana as an unavoidable risk.

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Lisa Powel

Jim Zahora, the president of Noble Tool Company, said drug testing in an already competitive landscape for manufacturers in the local....

“Whether you support medical marijuana or not, I believe there is an inevitability that it will be in Ohio at some point,” said Ross McGregor, executive vice president of Pentaflex Inc. in Springfield and a former state representative.

“I think the legislature has done the right thing in taking this up so that it can be done in a thoughtful way, and more people can be engaged in the conversation. I would much rather have the legislature take up this issue than have it force upon us as a ballot issue.”

The movement toward legalized marijuana in Ohio has led some local employers to consider pre-employment drug testing for the first time.

“We’re considering doing it now because of some of the things that are happening, but in the past it was just never done,” said Jim Zahora, president of Noble Tool Corp. in Dayton. “It might not be extensive drug testing, just more general screening. But I think we’re heading towards that, unfortunately.”

Zahora lamented the prospect of absorbing the added cost of testing in an already competitive landscape for manufacturers in the local area.

“Drug testing will add cost to the hiring process, and that’s certainly something we don’t look forward to,” he said.

While testing may be necessary, it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

The labor market is so tight that some companies have been forced to try to accommodate talented workers with substance abuse problems who fail drug tests.

Rick Little, president of manufacturer Starwin Industries in Kettering, said skilled tradesmen are just too hard to come by to dismiss on the basis of a failed drug test without giving them a second chance.

“We had a new hire that came in an tested positive for marijuana, but we chose to give him the opportunity to stay by letting him prove that he could get clean,” according to Little, who said the employee passed a second drug test about a month later.

“If it was an entry-level position, then we probably would have found somebody else. But this guy had some skills, so we decided it would be worth the cost and the effort to try to get him off of it.”

Little said the company has made allowances for a handful of skilled workers struggling with alcohol and substance abuse over the years. But it doesn’t always work out.

“We had a guy who was doing something once at the shop, and we said, look, take a week off with no pay and come back and then we’ll see how it goes. He did OK for awhile but ended up having to leave because we couldn’t tolerate what he was doing,” according to Little, who said the employee was sniffing paint solvents while on the job to get high.

The lengths to which some employers will go to keep quality workers underscores just how tight the labor market is, but drug testing should remain a necessary condition of employment, especially in industries such as trucking, delivery and manufacturing, where impaired workers pose risks to themselves and others around them, according to McGregor.

“If you have a drug-free workplace policy and conduct drug screening, then you’re just going to have a smaller pool of people to work with,” McGregor said. “But given the nature of what we’re doing, and the size of the equipment that’s being operated…we just can’t have anyone out there under any impairment.”

While the number of failed drug tests at Pentaflex has remained about the same at less than 10 percent of all applicants, McGregor said, many qualified workers simply don’t bother to apply because they aware of the company’s tough screening processes, including random drug testing after an initial pre-employment screening.

“We make it clear from the beginning that you’ll be required to pass a drug test, and that applies to all new hires from senior management down to direct labor,” McGregor said. “There is a cost associated with our drug testing, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of someone being hurt in the workplace or causing damage to the machinery.”

To defer some of the cost, McGregor and others use staffing agencies to hire entry level laborers and other workers who have already been tested for illicit drugs.

But the staffing firms face the same dilemma as their clients.

“Most people know that we do testing, and they know the testing works, so if they’ve got a problem, they’re not going to come knocking on our door,” said Tom Maher, president of Manpower of Dayton Inc.


Positive drug tests increase

An analysis of the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index showed steady increases in positive tests for illicit drugs among U.S. workers from 2013 to 2014. By drug:

• Marijuana continues to be the most commonly detected illicit drug, according to Quest. Positive marijuana tests in the general U.S. workforce increased 14.3 percent from 2013-2014.

• Positive results for cocaine in urine tests increased by 9.1 percent between 2013 and 2014. Urine drug tests account for the vast majority of cocaine drug tests.

•Positive tests for 6-acetylmorphine, or 6-AM, a specific marker for heroin, doubled in the general U.S. workforce between 2011 and 2014. The change from 2013 to 2014 was not readily available.

• Urine drug tests showed a 7.2 percent year-over-year increase in amphetamine use in 2014 compared to 2013, and the positivity rate for amphetamines is now at its highest levels on record.

• Methamphetamine detected in urine drug tests increased 21.4 percent, and the positivity rate for methamphetamine is at its highest level since 2007.

• Overall, the positivity rate for approximately 6.6 million urine drug tests in the general U.S. workforce increased by 9.3 percent in 2014 compared to 2013 — the first year since 2003 in which the overall positivity rate for urine drug tests increased in the general U.S. workforce.

Fox Valley mom's battle against synthetic marijuana nears climax

Karen Dobner says her son, who died in a car accident in North Aurora after having a bad reaction to synthetic marijuana in June of 2011, would have been happy lives have been saved because of raised awareness about fake marijuana. (Denise Crosby, The Beacon-News)

By Denise Crosby

 

Karen Dobner is trying her best to move on.

Well, maybe "move on" is not quite the right phrase … "attain closure," perhaps.

Or "find peace."

Next month – June 14 to be exact – will mark five years since her 19-year-old son Max was killed when the car he was driving, traveling at a high rate of speed down Mooseheart Road, slammed into a North Aurora home on Route 31 after he experienced a horrific reaction to synthetic marijuana.

Dobner went on national television in the weeks that followed and became one of the nation's most vocal and effective crusaders in the fight against fake pot.

It's hard to do … this moving on stuff, she told me, when you are talking about the death of a child. And it doesn't help that the cases against those authorities say are responsible continue to move through the courts.

The civil stuff against the owners of the Fox Valley Mall's Cigar Shop that sold $20 worth of iAroma Hypnotic to her son, as well as the Iowa man accused of manufacturing and selling it over the Internet, were settled a year and a half ago.

Max Dobner, 19, of Aurora, died June 14, 2011 when he smashed his car into a house while under the influence of a synthetic drug mimicking marijuana. (Courtesy of Dobner family)

 

Now there's the criminal charges to deal with, and that's a lot more important to Dobner.

It took years of exhausting efforts for this determined mother to find an agency to go after those involved. Dobner says she unsuccessfully petitioned Kane and DuPage counties and the Illinois Attorney General's Office.

Synthetic marijuana is a tough nut for the legal system to crack because these so-called designer drugs can easily be manipulated by manufacturers to avoid the controlled substance list.

But Dobner, as anyone knows who has been following her story, does not give up easily. Thanks in large part to her persistence, local laws against fake pot stiffened, and in 2012 Springfield passed "Max's Law" that made it a felony to sell or possess synthetic marijuana.

That statute has become a model for other states attempting to get this deadly stuff off store shelves. Still, it wasn't until the summer of 2014, she says, that this case finally caught the attention of the feds, in particular, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matt Schneider who works out of the Northern Illinois Office.

Felony indictments were filed in April of last year for conspiracy to distribute substance analogues against Cigar Store owner Ruby Mohsin of Glen Ellyn, along with employee Mohammad Khan of Glendale Heights. A trial day is expected to be set this summer.

And on May 19, Kevin Seydel of Bettendorf, Iowa, was indicted in federal court in Chicago for manufacturing the synthetic marijuana sold to Max through two Internet companies, Spaced Out Herbs and Always 4 Less.

According to the indictment, he sold products falsely labeled as "potpourri," "herbal incense" and other misleading names to out of state customers, including hundreds of packages labeled as Zero Gravity, Train Wreck and iAroma to the Cigar Box in Aurora. The packaging was labeled not for human consumption but according to the indictment, Seydel intended for the product to be used as drugs.

In the deposition filed in the civil case against Seydel, he described himself as a retired plumber/pipefitter on disability following a bad car accident, who formed a company to manufacture iAroma and other products. He claimed his products were to be used as potpourri or incense.

According to the deposition, Seydel purchased the chemical from China that was dissolved into liquid form using acetone. He then used a bug sprayer and Rubbermaid containers to enhance an herb known as marshmallow leaf.

"It didn't take much to do it," he said in the deposition.

Dobner plans to be in court Wednesday when Seydel is arraigned ... and for proceedings against all involved, including a North Carolina man also indicted. After five years of seeking justice after the death of her son, it is now in the hands of the judicial system. And no matter what the outcome, Dobson seems ready to finally move on.

That included plans a year ago to move from Aurora to tiny Millbrook, in search of peace and quiet after such a long stint in the spotlight. But after that real estate deal fell through at the last minute, Dobner purchased a fixer upper on a few acres in Oswego with the goal of soon bringing a couple of horses to her property.

Dobner has, for the most part, shut down To The Maximus Foundation, which was created in the immediate aftermath of her son's death. The money left in this not-for-profit treasury will eventually be distributed to local organizations battling the drug issue, she told me.

While fake pot is at least now under control here, Dobner added, "we have a terrible heroin problem that can't be ignored."

That fight, however, will be for others to wage.

Had Max died earlier, Dobner is convinced no one would likely have paid much attention to the synthetic marijuana problem. Had he died later, she believes her efforts would have made little impact, as seems to be the case in other states that are reporting hospitalizations and fatalities from synthetic drugs on the rise.

"Max always wanted to use his life to help others," Dobner has stressed to me time and again since we first began talking back in June of 2011.

Thanks to his mom, in death he has certainly fulfilled that goal.

"More than he could ever have imagined," his mother added. "He paid the ultimate price. But we know because of what he and our family went through, others in this community are safer."

Q&A: Medical marijuana and the workplace

By Staff 

Q. If my doctor recommends that I use marijuana for a medical condition, can I use it at work without penalty?

A. Check with your employer before doing anything. An employer is within its rights to still administer its policy as if marijuana were being taken illegally.

Q. What happens if I use medical marijuana on my own time? Can I be fired from my job?

A. Yes, you can still be fired. Courts in multiple states have generally upheld dismissal of workers who use medical marijuana.

Q. If I get fired for violating my workplace drug policy, can I still collect unemployment benefits?

A. No, you can’t. It is considered a just cause firing.

Q. My company has a zero tolerance drug policy. Can I fire an employee who tests positive for medical marijuana even if he has a doctor’s recommendation?

A. Yes.

Source: Christopher J. Lalak, labor and employment attorney, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff

UWI urged to take lead in marijuana research

Marijuana

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — A Barbados Government legislator has criticised the University of the West Indies (UWI) for its failure to lead the regional efforts on the research of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

“We have this talent at the UWI and we should have been at the forefront of marijuana uses for diseases, for medical purposes. We should have been at the forefront,” Government Senator Jeptor Ince told the Senate Wednesday during the debate on the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and Other Health Professions (Incorporation) Bill, 2016.

Ince, the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Finance, told legislators that he was disappointed at the position of the UWI and warned that the Caribbean was at risk of being left behind if the regional educational institution continued to focus on some of the traditional subjects it offered.

He insisted that the UWI had to look at research in medicine as a way to boost its revenues, saying it was also clear that the marijuana industry was exploding, particularly in the United States.


“I am of the opinion that once the United States reaches the stage where they have found the remedies in marijuana for a lot of diseases — because right now, in most of the states, they are learning the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes — they are going to issue licences… to bring that product into countries, and we are going to be left standing here saying if we had known.

 “I am confident the research needs to be done; not only that, but in other areas. So, don’t let us sit back... let us implement with haste these things that are important, Ince said, adding that “education is an investment... We have produced some of the best academics anywhere in the world and I am still bothered that we have a UWI... that is not doing enough research”, he reasoned.

Earlier this year, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves called for a collective Caribbean approach regarding the trade and other benefits of marijuana cultivation in the region.

“We have to have the studies. That is why I advocated the Caribbean marijuana commission. In the changing global context of marijuana use, Caribbean economists and other relevant professionals, including those in the pharmaceutical industry, ought to be ahead of the curve in conducting relevant research, not rehearsing traversed territory,” Gonsalves said in an address to the launch of 40th anniversary celebrations at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies.

In 2014, regional leaders, at their summit in Antigua, announced the establishment of the commission as they discussed the means of decriminalising marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The commission will “conduct a rigorous enquiry into the social, economic, health and legal issues surrounding marijuana use in the region, and to advise whether there should be a change in the current drug classification of marijuana, thereby making the drug more accessible for a range of users”, according to the communiqué issued at the end of the summit.

Caribbean Community Secretary General Irwin LaRocque said then that the objective of such a commission on marijuana “is to conduct an inquiry into the social, economic, health and legal issues surrounding marijuana use in the Caribbean”.

Study claims marijuana can be cure for infertility in men

Scientists discover a cannabinoid receptor, called CB2, helps regulate the creation of sperm.

 

Thoru Pederson,
 

Frequently smoking pot can take its toll on your sperm and now, a new study suggests that a marijuana receptor might actually hold the key to new fertility treatments for men.

In the research, scientists showed that a cannabinoid receptor, called CB2, helps regulate the creation of sperm. Not only does this provide more evidence that marijuana can disrupt fertility in males, but it also suggests a therapeutic strategy for treating male infertility.

Researcher Paola Grimaldi from the University of Rome Tor Vergata said that the possibility to improve male fertility is one of the main focuses of this study, since infertility is a worldwide problem that affect up to 15% of couples, in which male factors account for almost 20-70%.

To make their discovery, Grimaldi and colleagues treated three groups of mice with different agents for 14 to 21 days. The first group was treated with a specific activator of the CB2 receptor. The second group was treated with a specific inhibitor of the CB2 receptor. The third group received only a saline solution and served as the control group.

The group treated with the CB2 activator showed an acceleration of spermatogenesis, while the group treated with the inhibitor displayed a slower rate of the process.This suggests that a tight balance of CB2 activation is required for the proper progression of spermatogenesis.

"The normal beneficial effects of endogenous cannabinoids on spermatogenesis can be stimulated further by a chemical mimic, an agonist, is a potentially promising new idea for treating male infertility," said Thoru Pederson, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.

Scientists brew cannabis liquid for safe medical use

A worker at a cannabis greenhouse. (Getty Images)

A team of stoners developed an improvised method of growing cannabis.

Swiss scientists have taken a leaf from the pothead recipe book to brew an e-cigarette cannabis liquid for medical use they said Thursday is safer than a joint and better than a pill.

"Therapeutic cannavaping", they argued, should be examined as an alternative to existing treatments which can come in the form of a syrup, pill, mouth spray, skin patch, suppository, or a plain-old spliff.

The team copied an improvised method popular among marijuana afficionados using butane gas to extract and concentrate cannabinoids -- the active, high-causing compounds of cannabis. "We were inspired by what is done illegally, underground, on the web fora," said study co-author Vincent Varlet, a biochemist and toxicologist from the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"Normally, they use this form of cannabinoids to get high. Based on what is done illegally, we found that it could be interesting" for the medical field. The method yields super-concentrated "dabs" of butane hash oil (BHO) -- comprising about 70-80% THCa -- the precursor of THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the psychoactive ingredient. THCa is transformed into THC at high heat.

Usually the dabs are burnt and the fumes inhaled. But for the study, the team mixed their activated BHO paste into commercially-available e-cigarette liquid at different concentrations -- three, five or 10%. They then put "vaping machines" to work: sucking at the e-cigarettes and blowing out vapour, which was measured for its THC content, according to results published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

"Cannavaping appears to be a gentle, efficient, user-friendly and safe alternative method for cannabis smoking for medical cannabis delivery," the team concluded with a nod to "the creativity of cannabis users". It was also more reliable than consuming cannabinoid pills or foods which are poorly and erratically absorbed, said Varlet.

Battery-powered e-cigarettes heat up liquids containing artificial flavourings, with or without nicotine, to release a vapour which is inhaled and exhaled much like smoke.

They are touted as safer than the real thing, and an aide for giving up cancer-causing tobacco -- which is also an ingredient of the traditional cannabis joint. - Weeding potheads from patients -Cannabis-infused e-liquids are advertised online, along with a rash of recipes for making your own.

Medical marijuana can be legally prescribed in some countries for pain relief, appetite stimulation, nausea reduction or the relief of muscle spasms. A challenge, said Varlet, was to keep cannabis intended for therapeutic use out of the hands of recreational high-seekers. One way to do that was to have legal drugs with microdoses of cannabinoids.

"We have calculated that to have the same dose of what is present in a real cigarette joint... with tobacco, we have to vape between 80-90 puffs" of the 10% BHO liquid, said Varlet. "Eighty puffs constitutes a rebuttal to getting high," he added, when a few drags from a joint will do.

"The take-home message of our article is that vaping is less harmful than smoking, so you can be sure that cannavaping is less harmful than cannabis smoking for medical purposes," said Varlet, adding there was no plan to patent or sell the product. "Today, we have set the cat among the pigeons.

This is just the first step, and we need to see how the scientific community is going to welcome this kind of possibility."

Initial reactions were mixed.

"Whilst vaping cannabis substances... does indeed remove the harmful effects of tobacco smoke, my concerns about vaping cannabis would be around the use of flavoured cannabis e-cigarettes that could be more popular amongst younger people," said Michael Bloomfield, a psychiatry lecturer at University College London.

David Nutt of Imperial College London said it was a "great idea", but "would be illegal in the UK currently". 

Aurora Colorado Uses Cannabis Tax Dollars to Help the Homeless

By Jason Sander

Getty

Now this is what we like to see! It is a noteworthy story any time “excess” tax dollars are reinvested in the community they were taken from, and seemingly put to good use. Colorado voted on what to do with excess cannabis tax dollars in 2015 – with voters opting for the state to keep it and reinvest it into public schools and the like. 

The officials in the city of Aurora, Colorado will be doing something similar in upcoming years.

Since legalizing it for recreational use in 2012, the state of Colorado has raked in millions of tax dollars from legal cannabis. Most economists estimate that revenue from the sale of legal cannabis alone will exceed $1 billion here in 2016. This isn’t even including the sale of various cannabis-related accessories and services.

Over the next two years, Aurora officials estimate they will take in about $4.5 million in legal cannabis tax dollars in their city alone. According to The Aurora Sentinel, they will use $1.5 million of that to help house and feed local homeless families. 

The funds will come out Aurora’s 2017 and 2018 budgets. Hopefully, the other $3 million of that will be put to worthwhile causes as well, but no word on that currently.

Out of the $1.5 million, $220,000 will be donated to the Colfax Community Network. This charity helps support families in need that are living in motels. The charity will help these families buy necessities like food, clothing and diapers. 

Additionally, the city plans to buy vans for organizations like Aurora Mental Health and the Comitis Crisis Center to give people rides to facilities. These vans will be a part of the city’s initiative to combat poverty and mental health issues, in conjunction with their “metro-wide homeless outreach,” The Sentinel reports.

The officials in the city of Aurora are seemingly stepping up and doing something useful for their citizens who are in need. If successful, this initiative will serve as a model approach that legalization activists in other U.S. cities and states can use in order to gain more support to further cannabis legislative initiatives and continue to remove harmful drug laws.

Hopefully in 2017 and 2018, we will see hard evidence that the city officials in Aurora have delivered on their promises and that these funds end up going to the right place. Only time will tell, but in the meantime, this is news cannabis activists can definitely use to help the cause.

'Creative' stoners planted seed for safer medical marijuana: study

Mariëtte Le Roux

 

A marijuana bud under a digital microscope on April 20, 2016 (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

 

Paris (AFP) - Swiss scientists have taken a leaf from the pothead recipe book to brew an e-cigarette cannabis liquid for medical use they said Thursday is safer than a joint and better than a pill.

"Therapeutic cannavaping", they argued, should be examined as an alternative to existing treatments which can come in the form of a syrup, pill, mouth spray, skin patch, suppository, or a plain-old spliff.

The team copied an improvised method popular among marijuana afficionados using butane gas to extract and concentrate cannabinoids -- the active, high-causing compounds of cannabis.

"We were inspired by what is done illegally, underground, on the web fora," study co-author Vincent Varlet, a biochemist and toxicologist from the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, Switzerland, told AFP.

"Normally, they use this form of cannabinoids to get high. Based on what is done illegally, we found that it could be interesting" for the medical field.

The method yields super-concentrated "dabs" of butane hash oil (BHO) -- comprising about 70-80 percent THCa -- the precursor of THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the psychoactive ingredient.

THCa is transformed into THC at high heat.

Usually the dabs are burnt and the fumes inhaled. But for the study, the team mixed their activated BHO paste into commercially-available e-cigarette liquid at different concentrations -- three, five or 10 percent.

They then put "vaping machines" to work: sucking at the e-cigarettes and blowing out vapour, which was measured for its THC content, according to results published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

"Cannavaping appears to be a gentle, efficient, user-friendly and safe alternative method for cannabis smoking for medical cannabis delivery," the team concluded with a nod to "the creativity of cannabis users".

It was also more reliable than consuming cannabinoid pills or foods which are poorly and erratically absorbed, said Varlet.

Battery-powered e-cigarettes heat up liquids containing artificial flavourings, with or without nicotine, to release a vapour which is inhaled and exhaled much like smoke.

They are touted as safer than the real thing, and an aide for giving up cancer-causing tobacco -- which is also an ingredient of the traditional cannabis joint.

- Weeding potheads from patients -

Cannabis-infused e-liquids are advertised online, along with a rash of recipes for making your own.

Medical marijuana can be legally prescribed in some countries for pain relief, appetite stimulation, nausea reduction or the relief of muscle spasms.

A challenge, said Varlet, was to keep cannabis intended for therapeutic use out of the hands of recreational high-seekers.

One way to do that was to have legal drugs with microdoses of cannabinoids.

"We have calculated that to have the same dose of what is present in a real cigarette joint... with tobacco, we have to vape between 80-90 puffs" of the 10-percent BHO liquid, said Varlet.

"Eighty puffs constitutes a rebuttal to getting high," he added, when a few drags from a joint will do.

"The take-home message of our article is that vaping is less harmful than smoking, so you can be sure that cannavaping is less harmful than cannabis smoking for medical purposes," said Varlet, adding there was no plan to patent or sell the product.

"Today, we have set the cat among the pigeons. This is just the first step, and we need to see how the scientific community is going to welcome this kind of possibility."

Initial reactions were mixed.

"Whilst vaping cannabis substances... does indeed remove the harmful effects of tobacco smoke, my concerns about vaping cannabis would be around the use of flavoured cannabis e-cigarettes that could be more popular amongst younger people," said Michael Bloomfield, a psychiatry lecturer at University College London.

David Nutt of Imperial College London said it was a "great idea", but "would be illegal in the UK currently".

Canadian Police Shut Down Dozens of Unlicensed Marijuana Dispensaries

Daniel White

Toronto police raided nearly 50 illegal pot shops in the city

Toronto police executed raids on dozens of marijuana dispensaries, shutting them down as the Canadian government moves to legalize pot across the country.

Police executed warrants and seized marijuana from 45 of the city’s 83 known unlicensed dispensaries, according to the Guardian.

While medical marijuana usage is legal in Canada— with a prescription— recreational use is not.

Unlicensed marijuana operations have popped up across the country, according to the Guardian report, as Canada’s Liberal government prepares to legalize recreational pot use.

The government has said that it will introduce a law by spring 2017, but until then Toronto police insist that the current laws remain in effect in Canada’s largest city.

It is unclear how much marijuana was seized and whether or not charges criminal charges were filed.

Opposition is growing to legalizing marijuana

By Ethan Hartley

Come November, Massachusetts could become the fifth state to legalize recreational marijuana. But a growing group of opponents – including some of the highest elected state officials – intend to make sure that doesn’t happen.

The Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act likely will go before voters this fall — proponents are gathering the 10,792 additional signatures needed to get it on the ballot — and if passed, it would legalize the commercial sale, taxation, recreational use and growing of marijuana in the state.

The act would allow those 21 years and older to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana outside their homes and up to 10 ounces within an “enclosed, locked space” within their residences. It would also allow up to 12 homegrown plants per residence.

The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts formally opposes the initiative and says the commercialization of the marijuana industry in Massachusetts would be dangerous for kids and only benefit those who seek to profit from full legalization.

“This new proposed law is written by and for the commercial marijuana industry, not the people of Massachusetts,” reads the campaign’s website. “As the industry profits, taxpayers will be left to foot the bill for the increased costs in health care and public safety.”

Opposition to the ballot question is already strong in Danvers. DanversCARES, a prevention coalition which seeks to foster a healthy community for youth and their families, came out officially in opposition to the ballot initiative, releasing a position statement in January.

“Marijuana emerges as the most commonly used illegal drug among Danvers youth, and rates of student marijuana use surpass the rates of all other illegal drugs combined,” read the statement, citing a behavioral survey from 2008-2014. 

“Among Danvers High School students, past month youth marijuana use is higher than past month tobacco use and while other adolescent drug use has decreased steadily since 2008, marijuana use has increased.”

The position statement was backed by both the Danvers School Committee, on a 4-0 vote, and the selectmen, on a 3-2 vote.

DanversCARES asserts that marijuana has long-term negative health effects on the brain development of young people, that its use becomes an addiction in as many as one in six teenagers and that use of the drug negatively affects academic results in students.

Additionally, the organization expressed concerned about the balance of young people using marijuana being at its highest, while the level of risk associated with marijuana by teenagers and young adults has never been lower. 

The driving force supporting the initiative has been the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which says full legalization will deal a significant blow to the marijuana black market, save money on law enforcement and punishment for marijuana crimes and reduce direct access to the drug for those under 21.

Joining the opposition are some of the highest-ranking members of Massachusetts’ government, including Gov. Charlie Baker, Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.

“We will join healthcare professionals, law enforcement, educators and family advocates to educate the public about the risks associated with this dangerous proposal and the serious adverse consequences facing states who have adopted similar laws,” Baker said in a recent statement.

Leading proponents see the legalization issue differently.

“The thinking behind this is concluding that prohibition has failed,” said Jim Borghesani, spokesman for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. “All it has done is enriched gangs and cartels and made access to marijuana easier for young people.

We think a regulated system would be a much more effective method of eliminating the illicit market and closing off access to young people.”

Polling has shown voters are split on the issue. Most recently, in early May, a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of 500 people showed 45 percent opposed legislation, 43 percent supported it, and another 11 percent remained undecided. That is the first widespread poll in which the majority has opposed legalization.

Concerns about the ballot initiative

State Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, chairman of the Special Senate Committee on Marijuana, led a group of fellow senators to Colorado and interviewed 75 experts over the course of last year to research the possible consequences of marijuana legalization and commercialization.

The committee released its 118-page report in March, and the results did not support the ballot initiative.

“My position is not that I’m fundamentally opposed to legalization, but I am strongly opposed to the ballot question and what the ballot question would represent for Massachusetts,” Lewis said.

Opponents, like Lewis, argue voters should be aware that legalizing marijuana through this initiative means a full-scale commercialization of the drug in Massachusetts as well.

Lewis likened the possible consequences of advertising and exposure to the younger generations as a road that many states have been down before with the tobacco industry.

“And [the commercialized marijuana industry] will be an industry that will be, as we’ve seen in Colorado and elsewhere, highly motivated to increase their sales and profits by targeting young people,” Lewis said.

One of the opposition’s main concerns about legal sale of marijuana is that the product itself has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, when the average THC content of a marijuana cigarette, or joint, was between 2 percent to 3 percent.

Today, according to Lewis, the average THC content of weed in Colorado is 18 percent, and hash oil extracts (also known as “dabs”) may go as high as 90 percent potency.

“It’s just a very different drug,” Lewis said.

Lewis also argued that, since the marijuana industry is still so new, there are still many problems in Colorado regarding the labeling, packaging, dosage and delivery systems of modern-day marijuana.

“Today, most people don’t even smoke marijuana,” said Lewis. “They vape it, they dab it, they eat food and drink beverages infused with THC, and that can lead to accidental consumption by kids who mistake it for products without THC, and it can also very often lead to overconsumption and misuse by adults, because it’s very hard to understand what the dosage is.”

Borghesani disagrees. He points out the ballot initiative calls for the creation of a “Cannabis Control Commission,” which he said would enact strict regulations regarding those issues.

“We specifically charge the Cannabis Control Commission to promulgate labeling and portion control and packaging regulations. We anticipate they will be the most stringent regulations in the nation,” Borghesani said. “We specifically say there will be no marketing towards children whatsoever.”

However, concerns about regulation are also paramount to the opposition’s stance. How will communities actually enforce laws to prevent people from driving while high, for example, or make sure people don’t sell their homegrown marijuana for profit in other states on the black market?

They also claim the initiative specifically limits local control over the amount of pot shops that could open.

“In Colorado there are now more pot shops than Starbucks and McDonalds combined,” Lewis said.

Concerns about youth use

Another pillar in the opposition argument revolves around the fear that more teens and young adults will be able to access and use marijuana, which a growing body of scientific research is concluding has significantly negative physical and mental effects on their developing brains.

“The culture is different than it was 15 years ago,” said Michelle Lipinski, principal of North Shore Recovery High School in Beverly. “The openness about weed is pervasive.

The perception of risk is so low.”

Lipinski has over 24 years in the education field, and started North Shore Recovery High 10 years ago out of her desire to help kids struggling with drug addiction. Although she is not morally or vehemently opposed to the legalization of marijuana, she has legitimate concerns about the consequences it may have for at-risk youth, many of whom start using marijuana in their early teens.

“It makes them numb,” she said about why some kids use marijuana habitually. “And that feels so good that they keep wanting to be numb and so they become dependent on it. It may not be a physical dependence, but it’s a dependence where they can’t feel normal without it.”

Lipinski said she doesn’t support the ballot initiative, because there is not yet enough effective preventative education established when it comes to marijuana abuse, and that in her experience, the path to worse drugs for some children definitely begins with marijuana.

“For me it’s all about the data,” she said. “If you can show me that this can be legalized and it’s going to stay out of the hands of children who are going to end up getting into much riskier behavior because of this drug, then that’s fine.”

Borghesani, however, believes kids are at far greater risk from the system they currently live in.

“The more dangerous market is the one that exists now where sales are in the hands of dealers who don’t ask for IDs and depend on dealing to people of all ages and, most importantly to them, people of young age,” he said. “It will be very different when it’s a legitimate business that will lose its license if they do sell to an underage person.”

Just the wrong time?

Lewis, Lipinski and Danvers Police Chief Patrick Ambrose all agree on one point about the ballot initiative — it’s simply the wrong time.

“I think we’re seeing an ongoing epidemic with heroin going on in all of our communities,” Ambrose said, adding he believes marijuana is clearly one of the “gateway” drugs that can lead to opioid abuse.

“Right now we’re in the middle of the largest opiate crisis that has ever been,” Lipinski said. “Why add another drug? Why right now? Can we just wait a couple years and see what happens?”

The call to “wait and see” — referring to waiting for more consequences and data to come out of places like Colorado — is another of the rallying cries from folks in opposition to legalizing marijuana in November.

“I think if instead we continue to learn from the experience of states like Colorado and Washington, we will be able to make much better policy decisions down the road,” Lewis said.

Borghesani, again, didn’t mince words in his rebuttal to their point.

“There’s never a wrong time to correct a miserably failed public policy,” he said.

“Remember, we’re not going to have to slide blind into this. We’re going to be able to pick up best practices from other states. By the time November comes around, four states that are already in this process have learned from their mistakes, and we’re going to learn even more from their mistakes and their successes.”

Lewis argued there are better alternatives to allowing a profit-driven, commercialized industry to set up shop in Massachusetts, such as state-operated facilities that are forbidden from advertising.

“There’s a way we could do this that I think would balance the fact that there are people who want to consume marijuana in the state — that is undeniable,” he said. “But a balance with public health concerns and with public safety concerns. And that’s not what this ballot question does.”

Despite all the back-and-forth, the Massachusetts voters likely will have the final say.

Colombia Legalizes Marijuana Cultivation for Medicinal Use

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  Ines Cano administers medical marijuana to her daughter Luna Valentina (L) at their home in Medellin on November 25, 2015; Valentina, 12, was born with refractory epilepsy and uses cannabis to calm her seizures. | Photo: AFP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By teleSUR
 

 The legalization of medical marijuana in Colombia marks the latest move away from the hard-line “war on drugs” championed by the United States.

 

The Colombian Senate approved a bill Wednesday that legalizes the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purpose, making it the fourth Latin American country to relax its marijuana laws.

The bill, which still must be approved by the Constitutional Court and signed by President Juan Manuel Santos, will replace an existing decree issued by the president in December.

The bill was promoted by Senator Juan Manuel Galan, who said on his Twitter account that he considered it a “historic day” and a victory for patients.

Galan also shared a video featuring a family who pushed for the legalization of medical marijuana.

“I am very happy because we were waiting for this for a long time. I know that this is a great beginning for many families who in this moment were in need of this law,” said Natalia Tangarife, whose son will benefit from medical marijuana treatment.

Cultivators can apply for licenses from the National Narcotics Council and will need to detail their business plan and abide by strict regulations.

The legalization of medical marijuana in Colombia marks the latest move away from the hard-line “war on drugs” championed throughout the region by Washington.

The country earlier decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and cocaine for personal use in 2012.

The so-called "war on drugs" provided a pretext for the U.S. government to interfere directly in Colombia's domestic affairs and provided justification for billions in military aid.

Study: Teen Marijuana Use And Crime Collapses As States Legalize

Guy Bentley

 

  Closeup of marijuana joint and buds on a checkerboard table with (Shutterstock/Wollertz)

The number of teens using and suffering from problems related to marijuana is falling at the same time more states are legalizing marijuana.

A study of more than 216,000 teens from across the country indicated a substantial fall in problems related to marijuana use.

Published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the research shows teen marijuana use dropped 10 percent between 2002 and 2013, despite a string of states decriminalizing and legalizing weed, although the number of adults using has increased.

The research team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis examined data on drug use over a 12-year time horizon for teens ages 12-17. Teens suffering from marijuana dependency or having trouble at school and in relationships plummeted by 24 percent over this period.

The number of teens who admitted using marijuana in the past 12 months was also lower in 2013 than it had been in 2002, falling by 10 percent. Fighting, crimes against property and selling drugs were also down.

“We were surprised to see substantial declines in marijuana use and abuse,” said the study’s author Richard A. Grucza, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry. “We don’t know how legalization is affecting young marijuana users, but it could be that many kids with behavioral problems are more likely to get treatment earlier in childhood, making them less likely to turn to pot during adolescence.

But whatever is happening with these behavioral issues, it seems to be outweighing any effects of marijuana decriminalization.”

“We don’t know how legalization is affecting young marijuana users, but it could be that many kids with behavioral problems are more likely to get treatment earlier in childhood, making them less likely to turn to pot during adolescence. But whatever is happening with these behavioral issues, it seems to be outweighing any effects of marijuana decriminalization.”

Grucza gathered the data as part of a confidential, computerized study called the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. “Other research shows that psychiatric disorders earlier in childhood are strong predictors of marijuana use later on,” Grucza said.

“So it’s likely that if these disruptive behaviors are recognized earlier in life, we may be able to deliver therapies that will help prevent marijuana problems — and possibly problems with alcohol and other drugs, too.”

GOP Congressman Says He Uses Medical Marijuana To Ease Arthritis Pain

The plant helps relieve pain so severe it was waking him up at night.

Matt Ferner

 

Tom Williams via Getty Images 

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) is an avid surfer. But he said the sport gave him shoulder pain and arthritis, and he turned to cannabis for relief. 

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a leading voice for the reform of marijuana laws in the United States, became the first sitting member of Congress in recent history to admit to medical marijuana use.

Rohrabacher, speaking to a group of cannabis activists on Tuesday on Capital Hill, said he has been an avid surfer for about three decades but had not been able to enjoy the sport for about a year and a half due to arthritis pain he’s developed in his shoulder. The pain became so severe that it has disrupted his sleep, the lawmaker said.

That is, until he tried medical marijuana.

“I went to one of these hempfests or something like that they had in San Bernardino,” Rohrabacher said, as first reported by Russ Belville at Cannabis Radio.

At the hemp festival, he met a vendor who introduced him to a cannabis-infused topical rub.

“This guy was showing me the medical things and all that, and he says, ‘You should try this.’ And it’s a candle and you light the candle, and the wax is in there and it melts down, and then you rub it on whatever you’ve got problems with,” the Republican congressman said.

He finally tried the product a couple of weeks ago, and that was “the first time in a year and a half that I had a decent night’s sleep because the arthritis pain is gone.”

The attendees cheered his comments.

Rohrabacher, a vocal supporter for reform of the nation’s marijuana laws, is one of the main sponsors of a measure that blocked the Department of Justice from using funds to target and prosecute medical marijuana patients or businesses who are operating legal in their state. The amendment has been reauthorized for the past two fiscal years.

“Now don’t tell anybody I broke the law, they’ll bust down my door and take whatever’s inside and use it as evidence against me, whatever it is,” Rohrabacher said. “The bottom line is, there’s definitely cannabis in there and it makes sure that I can sleep now.”

Listen to Rohrabacher’s full remarks at Cannabis Radio.

This was the first time Rohrabacher has spoken publicly about using medical cannabis, his press secretary Ken Grubbs told The Huffington Post.

It was also the first time in recent history that a sitting congressman admitted to using medical marijuana, said Marijuana Majority founder Tom Angell.

“Putting a face on the people who use marijuana will help immensely in the battle to end criminalization and other forms of harmful discrimination,” Angell added.

“It’s now going to be much harder for members of Congress, particularly those in the GOP caucus, to vote against medical marijuana, since they now know that one of their friends and colleagues is directly benefiting from it.”

California, along with 23 other states and the District of Columbia, has legalized medical marijuana.

This year, voters in four more states are expected to consider doing the same via ballot initiative.

Attitudes toward the plant and strict prohibition policies have rapidly shifted in recent years. An April CBS News poll found that 90 percent of Americans support the use of marijuana for medical purposes, with 56 percent in support of legalization for recreational use.

Are kids really more likely to get high when marijuana is legal?

Anti-legalization advocates say adolescent usage is up in states like Colorado. Pro-legalization supporters say it's down. Whose data is right? It's hard to know for sure.

By

Adam Vaccaro, Allison Manning

In the battle over whether to legalize recreational marijuana in Massachusetts, opponents have repeated one main refrain: think of the children. The crux of their argument? That legalizing marijuana will lead more adolescents and teens to use the drug.

“Where marijuana is legal, young people are more likely to use it,” wrote Mayor Marty Walsh, Gov. Charlie Baker, and Attorney General Maura Healy in the second paragraph of their Boston Globe editorial against legalizing weed.

But are kids really more likely to get high when marijuana is legal for adults? At this point—with only two years of recreational sales in two states and even less time elsewhere in the U.S.—it’s hard to tell. Experts say there hasn’t been enough time to seriously gather the effects of legalization across the country.

“We have two years of data on what happens when you legalize cannabis,” said Ryan Vandrey, a behavioral pharmacologist with an expertise in cannabis at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “I don’t think that’s long enough to fully understand and grasp the nature of change.”

“I would take the study with a grain of salt because they’re a little too soon, to be quite honest. That goes for either side. We just have not had enough time to study the effects,” said Rev. Richard McGowan, a Boston College statistician who studies vice industries like gambling and drugs. “[Voters’] personal experience right now is probably just as good as any study they’ll see.”

Notably, the pro- and anti-legalization efforts both point to Colorado, the first to market with retail stores after voters chose to legalize in 2012, to bolster their case. One study suggests adolescent usage is up, the other suggests it’s down. The numbers cited on both sides so far come with their own sets of issues.

Ahead, a look at where both sides stand.

What the opponents say:

The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, the anti-legalization group backed by Walsh, Baker, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo, has prominently put concerns about adolescent and teen access to the drug on its website.

“Since becoming the first state to legalize, Colorado has also become the No. 1 state in the nation for teen marijuana use,” the site reads. “Use by teens aged 12-17 jumped by over 12 percent in the two years since legalization, even as that rate has declined nationally.”

The argument is based on federal data that anti-legalization groups across the country were quick to pounce on.

Colorado did, indeed, rise to the top place on the study’s list for teenage drug use in a study released last year, based on 2013-2014 data, with 12.6 percent of teens saying they had used marijuana in the past 30 days. In a study based on data from 2012 and 2013, Colorado ranked No. 3, with 11.2 percent usage.

The study says that comparing 2012-2013 data with numbers from 2013-2014 effectively creates a comparison between 2012, prior to legalization, and 2014, post-legalization. The difference marked a 12.5 percent increase.

The study itself mellows the point, too. It says the change in Colorado was not statistically significant. For the study’s purposes, that meant Colorado “experienced no change in past month marijuana use” between the two periods.

When the 2014 data was released, the head of the state’s Department of Public Health said Colorado had always been near the top of the list and was within the margin of error for No. 1 in the earlier research. Colorado’s rise to No. 1 from No. 3 is mostly attributable to a smaller increase in Vermont, previously ranked No. 2, and a sharp drop in Rhode Island, which had ranked first.

Opponents say a legal market that could include cannabis-infused candy or soda will draw in adolescents or lead to accidental consumption. Even if the data so far is unclear, any evidence that it will lead more teens to use pot is reason enough not to take it up, opponents say.

“Once we allow the commercial marijuana industry into Massachusetts, we can not undo its impact, and the evidence of harm to young people is a significant reason to pause to learn more before rushing forward with this ballot question,” spokesman Corey Welford said in a statement.

That the federal data shows youth usage increased after medical marijuana expanded in Colorado in 2009 is indicative that relaxed laws lead to increased teen usage, legalization opponents also say.

The relevance of that argument is arguable itself: Massachusetts already legalized medical marijuana in 2012, but only a handful of dispensaries have opened so far.

Another study, published last year in The Lancet, the peer-reviewed science journal, countered the medical argument through a nationwide look at medical marijuana laws across the country as well as 20 years of adolescent usage data. It concluded that states with medical marijuana laws had higher rates of adolescent usage, but that those states were always among the highest, and passage of such laws didn’t have any effect on the rate of usage.

The study did leave open the possibility that societal acceptance of marijuana, rather than laws allowing it, increases teen usage—a line of thinking shared by some researchers and scientists.

What the proponents say:

Meanwhile, the ballot question’s chief supporters in the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol offer data they say suggests otherwise.

The proponents think they are bolstered by a survey out of Colorado taken every two years at schools. They compare data from 2011 to 2013, the first time the survey was taken after voters legalized the drug in 2012.

The 2013 survey found slight drops from 2011 in the percentage of high school and middle school students who reported using marijuana either in the last 30 days or in their lifetimes.

The pro-marijuana campaign also notes that 40,000 students took the 2013 survey and say it represents a sizable data pool.

Marijuana possession became legal in Colorado in 2013, but stores did not open until 2014, so the survey does not factor in the effect of retail sales.

Additionally, the 2011 and 2013 surveys were conducted with different methodology, as the survey’s size vastly expanded in 2013. The 2015 survey is expected to be released in June, and many in the industry are awaiting it for more of an apples-to-apples comparison to 2013, while also accounting for the launch of retail in the state.

Opponents also say that the 2013 study’s data set is not optimal because it does not include one of the state’s largest school districts, which opted out of participating in the 2013 survey.

Jim Borghesani, the communications director for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, says the status quo is more dangerous to young people.

“Nothing could possibly be worse than the system that exists today for teen use because it’s completely unstructured or unrestrained,” he said. “We think that putting sales in the hands of business that do check IDs will be a huge improvement. We think that’s just common sense.”

Borghesani thinks there’s data to back that point up, too, from recent research out of Washington, which legalized pot in 2012. According to the study, 54 percent of teenagers said they had easy access to marijuana in 2014, compared to 55 percent in 2010.

However, one of the researchers said that it was “somewhat concerning” that ease of access to marijuana hadn’t really budged in the four years, while teens said alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs became more difficult to access during the same period.

Dr. Timothy Wilens, an addiction and child psychiatry expert at Massachusetts General Hospital who has advised the anti-legalization campaign on youth issues, thinks that’s an important distinction in the various studies.

“What we’re not seeing is a decline,” he said.

Like other researchers, Wilens also said data from Washington, Colorado, and elsewhere is too young to draw any real conclusions.

“It’s probably at this point a mild increase, but still, that’d be debatable,” he said. “We’re just almost too early. That’s why you’re seeing the same data spun different directions.”

That’s one point where both sides may actually agree.

“One thing I’ve found on this is that there are so many contradictory reports that you can probably have a debate throwing reports at each other,” said Borghesani.

Protect kids from new pot laws

Legalizing marijuana is the right thing to do, but we must ensure that our children don’t become victims in the process

All of us on the front lines of youth mental health and well-being know too well the disastrous results of frequent marijuana usage by kids, writes Calvin White.  (KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)  

By Calvin White

Of course, marijuana will be legalized. Only the misplaced morality of our previous Conservative government was impeding the logic that crime will be lessened, tax largesse will be increased, and consumer rights will finally be recognized. How could any reasonable person argue that alcohol should be legal but marijuana not? 

However, legalization does raise a tricky issue with which we have a responsibility to grapple. Kids and marijuana.

All of us on the front lines of youth mental health and well-being know too well the disastrous results of frequent marijuana usage by kids. Young habitual users are usually less present, less motivated to excel, less comfortable with their natural state, and less able to create meaningful engagement with peers and studies. We know it is not the same as the toking of past generations. 

Scientific analysis shows how, in current strains, the THC potency is tenfold higher and the anti-psychotic chemical component has been eliminated. This means the potential for pot to lead to psychosis is a clear and present danger for our kids and their developing brains.

This is not to say that a teenager who smokes marijuana once in a while is at significant risk. There is not the research to determine what frequency or duration is safe or not safe. Yet, if we look into who smokes and why, there is a frightening pattern. 

Too many teens are smoking it every day or several times a week. They are, for all intents and purposes, addicted. They use it to go to sleep, to take the edge off stress or boredom at school, and to create amiable socialization with peers. They use it in order to not feel what they would feel if they did not use it. In short, for so many kids, being high feels better than not being high. 

So why wouldn’t kids practise that form of “self-care”? We shouldn’t denigrate them for it. It makes perfect sense.

Getting stoned also fills the need to rebel and to enact one's own independence, which are natural to the teenage stage of life. These kids mistakenly believe they are in control.

This is why it is so extremely difficult to convince a teen to stop using. Added to the challenge is the ubiquitous wink of approval that marijuana gets from the media and the adult world. 

The silly “police oriented” admonition that it is a gateway drug long ago revealed itself as a total scam since kids grow up with parents and parents' friends who toke up. For years, political platforms have discounted any risks.

Thus, it is essential that we begin to see the legalization of marijuana not as a moral issue but as a perilous public health issue. Once the laws change, the message will irrevocably be that marijuana is just fine and the sliver of hesitation caused by its illegality will be gone. There is every reason to assume that usage by children will increase. We will see more mental illness in their ranks.

The normalization of being stoned or under the influence will be entrenched with the sad consequence that growing up will be impaired. 

What does that mean? It means that rather than a kid going through the natural process of ups and downs, learning to cope or adapt or bounce back as realities fluctuate, and through those experiences developing a firm and knowing relationship with their true self, they will instead be chemically insulating and moving through reality within that shroud. Instead of developing confidence in the relationship between their true selves and empirical reality, they will be learning dependence on something external that they must ingest in order to make it. How sad.

Adults dictate what happens in the world. In their wilfulness to cater to their own wants, they inevitably ignore, deny or minimize the effects of their choices on their children. 

When it comes down to it, we adults want what we want and we prioritize our right to have it. We will legalize marijuana because it makes sense to us and in the process we will give lip service to protecting our kids. 

But will we take the latter seriously by creating and funding widespread, comprehensive educational and intervention programs? And, if not, will we accept our responsibility when we discover the consequences that arise?