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Suetaz

Marijuana backers cite new study

By ALLISON FARRELL | Gazette State Bureau | Billings Gazette | August 22, 2004

HELENA - A new California study showing that use of marijuana by teenagers has dropped since a medical marijuana law was adopted there in 1996 proves that the permissive laws don't foster youth pot use, Montana marijuana advocates said Friday.

The new study, released this week by the state of California, reports that the number of ninth-graders using marijuana dropped 45 percent over the past eight years.

When California's medical marijuana law was passed in 1996, 34.2 percent of ninth-graders reported using marijuana within six months of the survey.

But this year, 18.8 percent of ninth-graders reported using the drug within six months of the survey.

"What I think may be happening is young people start to see that marijuana is for sick people and it's not something that should be used lightly," said Paul Befumo, treasurer of the Montana Policy Project of Montana.

At the very least, Befumo said, the study shows medical marijuana laws don't increase the rate of teen pot use.

Activists from the Marijuana Policy Project of Montana raised more than enough signatures - about 25,000 - to get their medical marijuana initiative placed on the general election ballot this November. Montanans will be asked to vote on Initiative 148, a proposed new law that would protect medical marijuana patients, their doctors and their caregivers from arrest and prosecution.

But critics of the proposed law have said that medical marijuana laws are the first step toward drug reregulation, and called the initiative a "law enforcement nightmare."

Roger Curtiss, an addiction counselor for Anaconda-Deer Lodge counties and opponent of the initiative, points to data recently released by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University that shows children and teens are three times likelier to be in treatment for marijuana use than for alcohol use.

[Suetaznote: That statement sounds backwards to me and smells like total BS. The statement bolded below is possible, if only because marijuana is the easiest for them to get. Teens probably end up in treatment because of school drug testing, not because they necessarily need treatment.]

And they are six times likelier to be in treatment for marijuana use than for all other illegal drugs combined, he said.

Curtiss also said marijuana is a so-called "gateway drug," which means people who use marijuana have less inhibitions about using other, more serious, drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

[Suetaznote: Wouldn't you think a drug counselor would have learned that it is the personalities using the drugs, not the drugs themselves, that choose to use drugs? If marijuana were a gateway drug, then the 22,000+ members at this website that use marijuana would all be addicted to heroin. ]

Advocates of the proposed law, however, said the new California study buoys their causes.

"In California, which has the oldest medical marijuana law on the books, teen use is actually dropping," Befumo said.

Bruce Mirkin, the director of the Marijuana Policy Project based in Washington, D.C., and parent organization to the Montana effort, said the new study would "put to rest the myth that medical marijuana laws send the wrong message to children."

"Frankly, it never made any sense that kids would think a drug is cool because cancer or AIDS patients use it to keep from vomiting," Mirkin said.

[Suetaznote: You never know what teens are going to think is cool, but I think teens are at least learning that there is more to marijuana than the lies they have been taught by DARE.]

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solutions

Utter and complete nonsense (gee really? yes really!). I grew up with parents who have smoked marijuana and educated me on the dangers of other drugs. Understanding the difference between cannabis and the more riskful drugs mentioned I have never ever been interested in even trying the latter drugs.

I think statements like these are not just wrong but highly irresponsible. Idiots who claim cannabis and other drugs are "just as dangerous" are the ones sending the wrong message to the kids. When kids find out cannabis is not as bad or dangerous as these fools suggest they may be inclined to think the warnings about other drugs are false too.

That is my rant of the day.

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3 monkeys sitting under a coconut tree
discussing things as they are set to be
Said one to the other, now listen you two
there's a strange rumor that can't be true
they say man was descended from our noble race
but the very idea is a big disgrace
no monkey ever deserted his wife
or her baby to ruin their lives.
Damian Marley - Educated Fools

Phyxius

It's only a gateway drug BECAUSE it's illegal... grr...

xxdr_zombiexx

The Gateway Drug is an erroneous myth.

The Canadian Report from a year or so ago suitably smashed that and relegated it to being only the prattle of extremists.

The lie comes from the fact that MOST people who smoke pot DONT go on to use "harder drugs with any regularity, if at all. The Netherlands data has shown this for 20 eyars and measurable so: Fewer addict numbers and an overall increasing average age. This means fewer new addicts have been created.

Besides...the gateway theory is a lie orginally told be Harry Anslinger and that has been endlessly repeated.

It has absolutley no basis in fact, has not been shown by the most egregiously funded study, and is not supported by the notion that all addicts started on pot first: simple guilt by association - the smear.

However the whole basis of the lie rests on obfuscating that fact.

This is one reason the Netherlands data is always ignored.
CASA....wasting space and ink that could have told a better story.

CASA Article

How many of the kids were court-referred to businesses like his?

I wonder why Ol' Rog opposes the 'nitiative......

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.