Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005
Subject: #316 Medical Marijuana Does Not Increase Teen Use
MEDICAL MARIJUANA DOES NOT INCREASE TEEN USE
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #316 – Saturday, 10 Sep 2005
The Wed, Sep 7 edition of the Los Angeles Times carried some great
news. An almost decade-old Prohibitionist bogeyman – “Allowing adults
legal access to medical marijuana will cause teenage use of pot to
skyrocket” – has been demonstrated as just so much claptrap.
The study is based on data from national and state surveys, which show
a drop in marijuana use by teens.
Although debate over medical marijuana is often shaded by concerns
about increasing drug abuse among young people, the report suggested
the opposite has been true.
The study’s authors were Mitch Earleywine, a State University of New
York psychology professor, and Karen O’Keefe, a legislative analyst
with Marijuana Policy Project, the organization that commissioned the
research based on state and federal data.
That data “strongly suggests” that approval of medical marijuana has
not increased recreational use of cannabis among adolescents,
Earleywine and O’Keefe concluded. And the decline in many of the
states with medical marijuana laws is “slightly more favorable” than
trends nationwide, they said.
The MPP study is on line here:
http://www.mpp.org/teens.html
Please consider contacting your local and state newspapers and asking
them to carry this important story.
Many newspapers have picked up the short news blurb, via the
Associated Press, which announced the overall national drop in teenage
marijuana use. But they’re not likely to carry the related and
frankly more important story about this study, unless their local
readers ask them to do so.
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The LA Times article by Eric Bailey can be seen here:
US: Pot Use Down Where Medical Use OK
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1446/a06.html
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To see a listing of the newspapers from your state and their contact
information, go to http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm, use the dropdown
menu to select your state and then select CONTACT.
Thanks for your effort and support.
It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do
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Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center:
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/
Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal
tips on how to write LTEs that get printed.
heath@mapinc.org
And of course, you are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing
friends of MAP this Sunday evening, Sep. 11th at 9pm EDT for a
roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that get print and
specifically how to best respond to this Focus Alert. We’ll also be
talking about LTEs directed at Opinion items concerning the Raich
decision from the Supreme Court.
See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how
you can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in
reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and
speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging.
The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install.
The password for this gathering will be PW: welcome-pal (all lower
case)
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Prepared by: Stephen Heath, MAP Media Activism Facilitator =.