Our High Schools & The Weed Controversy: Letters to the Sentinel Review
Reponses from Around the World
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Recently there has been some disagreement voiced in our local newspaper about the popularity of marijuana amongst young people in our town. There was an overwhelming amount of support for the Marijuana Party from the students, and indeed the adults, of our community. We would like to thank all those who voted for us and helped put up signs to enhance our campaign.
The first letter below, taken from the Sentinel Review, is the opinion of a teen councilor who finds this support very troubling. The letters to the right, responses also published by the Sentinel Review, are sent in by concerned supporters of the movement to legalize Marijuana and have some very profound ideas about how this popularity is derived and the effects legalization would have upon our young people.
Troubled by youth’s view of marijuana
The Woodstock Sentinel-Review
Mike Robinson - Woodstock
Friday February 03, 2006
As an educator and counsellor of teens, I have felt the need to write about the apparent acceptance, by many, of marijuana use as a harmless pastime. My need to write was heightened after observing student reactions to a recent all-candidates meeting and the student "practice" federal election held in area schools.
The Marijuana Party candidate received cheers, support and significant votes from many students.
I find it sad that this impressionable group of children seems to perceive that society has already accepted marijuana as a safe and cool drug. The research does not seem to agree with this assumption.
A recent examination of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (USA) website revealed over 40 independent research studies which all tell a different story.
According to this research, regular marijuana use can result in dependence, as well as memory difficulties, attention problems, lower motivation and co-ordination and balance difficulties. Regular pot smokers, on average, miss more days of work, than non-users, often due to respiratory illnesses and weakened immune systems.
Joe Palumbo, a recovered drug addict and speaker, has stated, "The worst drug I ever did was pot ... because it led to all the rest ... and it is addictive." This dependence is developed as THC (the psychoactive chemical in marijuana and hashish) bonds to dopamine receptors in the brain and lessens the natural supply of dopamine (our "natural high" hormone), making the user feel more depressed when the drug wears off.
My greatest concern is for young people who believe they are not harming themselves through pot use, especially since so many adults are promoting legalization and openly using. Schools struggle to work with some students who are less motivated, with memory, retention and attention problems and half asleep in classes. I would guess that employers are not too keen to hire workers who exhibit these same pot-related symptoms.
As adults, we need to promote and model healthier choices and insist that future election campaigns are used to promote serious political parties, not psychoactive drugs, especially to our children.
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Jim Bender's Response Published in The Sentinel Review February 17th 2006
Youth know when they’re ‘being conned’
Re: Troubled by youth’s view of marijuana (letter to the editor, Feb. 3).
Russell Barth - Ottawa
Tuesday February 07, 2006
The Woodstock Sentinel-Review — I applaud anyone’s efforts to keep kids away from drugs, but the reason kids think pot is cool has more to do with the lies perpetuated by the anti-pot establishment than the efforts of legalization advocates. Kids know when they are being conned.
Adults have lost all credibility when it comes to all drugs, because we have lied and exaggerated the so-called "dangers" of marijuana. We tell kids that marijuana will cause cancer, schizophrenia, impotence, permanent stupidity and an addiction to hard drugs. When kids find the truth on their own (which is just a Google search away), they will realize they have been systematically lied to.
They will think; "Adults lied about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and marijuana, so they must be lying about meth, crack, booze, safe-sex and safe-driving, too." And who can blame them?
We advertise booze, fast cars, fast food, violent movies and video games and drugs of all kinds on TV, then tell kids "say no to drugs." We give kids Ritalin, instead of reducing their sugar and Game-Boy intake, and then tell kids "pot is dangerous!" They see right though this hypocrisy. A ruse by any other name...
Taking the marijuana business out of the hands of kids and criminals and putting it into the hands of responsible adults is socially conservative. Generating tax revenue from that industry is fiscally conservative, and using that money to teach kids why they should avoid drugs is morally conservative.
By not legalizing and regulating marijuana production and sales, we subsidize criminals, make pot easier for kids to access than either tobacco or alcohol, waste valuable police resources and billions of dollars annually, ruin lives for no good reason, deprive ourselves of a source of valuable medicine and miss out on $3 billion in annual tax revenue.
For those keen on educating kids about drugs without all the fear-mongering, hyperbole, and hypocrisy of the standard "drug education" programs, I recommend having a look at the Educators For Sensible Drug Policy website at www.efsdp.org
I am a federal medical marijuana licence holder.
Legalize pot and no more youthful ‘cool’
The Woodstock Sentinel-Review
Harry Fisher - Woodland Hills, Calif.
Tuesday February 07, 2006
Youth counsellor Mike Robinson laments students’ enthusiasm for the Marijuana Party during a "practice federal election" held in the area schools (letter to the editor, Feb. 3.) I expect the students cheered the alcohol party as well, possibly even the Tylenol party. What? There are no such parties? Could that be because those substances can be legally
obtained and thus are stripped of youthful-rebellion potential?
After decades of the government crying wolf concerning marijuana, it is not easy to discern exactly when the government tells the truth, and certainly the young people are suspicious of more or less well-meaning lies. Legalize marijuana and it will soon be seen as just another medication for the ill, the furthest possible from youthful "cool." It is prohibition that has elevated marijuana to cult-like status.
Old strategy not cutting it these days
Re: Troubled by youth’s view of marijuana (letter to the editor, Feb. 3).
Wayne Phillips - Hamilton
Thursday February 09, 2006
The Woodstock Sentinel-Review — As an educator and counsellor of teens, Mr. Robinson should be concerned regarding the Marijuana Party candidate receiving cheers, support and significant votes from many students. However, like so many before him, he just doesn’t seem to get it.
As an educator and counsellor of teens, he should have some inkling of the fact that youth have access to cannabis because of the current legislative manner in which cannabis is dealt with.
Prohibition of cannabis has not only provided the opportunity for youth to access cannabis, prohibition has opened the doors to exposing youth to a plethora of substance far more detrimental then the most potent cannabis available. As an educator and counsellor of teens, I would hope Mr. Robinson is cognizant of that.
Now, I could go on citing study after study and throw in numerous commissioned reports, to boot, stating to the contrary what Mr. Robinson contends. Ultimately that solves little.
But consider this, where is the logic in trying to convince a category of developing individuals, in the throes of hormonal upheavals, about the potentials of risk-taking behaviours in a world where risk-taking is so commonplace that, in many instances, it isn’t even given a second thought; especially in this time where so much responsibility is already expected of this group.
Time to rethink strategy, people, "do what I say, not what I do" just doesn’t make the grade these days.