On Thursday, representatives from Health Advocates Rejecting Marijuana (HARM), spoke to an audience at the conference center at Choctaw Casino in Durant about the danger and prevention of marijuana use. The conference was hosted by the Bryan County Turning point Drug Free Community Coalition and the Wichita Mountains Prevention Network.
The goals of HARM are “to decrease the accessibility/ availability of marijuana-related paraphernalia and to minimize messages that encourage, normalize or trivialize marijuana use” and “to reduce marijuana use by youth, to lessen the problems associated with the accessibility and use of marijuana by youth and to change the perception that marijuana is harmless.”
During the conference, the following five policy campaigns were discussed in-depth: head shop policy, retailers policy, special events and outdoor venues policy, dispensaries policy and media normalization. John Byrom, co-facilitator of HARM, and Rebecca Hernandez, a policy co-chair, spoke to the audience about marijuana use in San Diego County, California. In 1996, California passed a law legalizing the use, possession and cultivation of marijuana by patients who possess a “written or oral recommendation” from a physician that he or she “would benefit from medical marijuana.”
Byrom said he actively protested the law and has been fighting against marijuana use in California ever since. Hernandez became involved working against marijuana use when she was employed at a San Diego high school working with at-risk high school students. She said she saw how drugs and alcohol were negatively affecting their lives and futures.
“We’re losing a whole generation of kids to drug use,” she said. During the presentation, the team spoke about different initiatives of the organization and how they have worked to stop the prevalence of the glamorization of drug use in society. They showed pictures of clothing, shoes, belts, bags and other items found in major stores in California. Pictures and clips of sound and video were also viewed that showed how HARM has been actively fighting marijuana use in San Diego County.
Hernandez said, “We need to stand up to the bully. We’re going to lose our nation if we let people like that [advocates of marijuana use] move forward and that’s why we’re sharing what’s going on in California with other states.”
Byrom urges residents of Southeastern Oklahoma to take a stand against marijuana use and work to prevent its prevalence in the community.
“You can stop it and that’s what’s great. You can stop it from growing to the point of California and you can be the prevention. You have the ability because it hasn’t taken hold here; it’s nothing compared to California. If you can stop it before it happens, that’s the whole idea of prevention. “
According to Gwynn Busby, Wichita Mountains Prevention Network regional coordinator, marijuana use was chosen as a priority issue in Bryan County because of the high rate of admission into treatment with marijuana designated as the drug of choice. Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s arrest records show 100% of drug arrest for students 18 and over at the university had marijuana included with other drugs that were confiscated. Slightly over one-third of the Bryan County Court’s cases are related to marijuana charges. These charges include: possession, intent to sell, cultivate, and paraphernalia.
Bryan County plans to adopt HARM as a county-wide marijuana prevention initiative. For more information about HARM in Bryan County, contact Gwynn Busby at (580) 490-9021, ext. 102.
Why would we legalize it? Why tell our kids it's ok when it's not. It's no wonder that many of our youth think marijuana is harmless, they're only getting one side of the story.
While it's true that other drugs may be more addictive and cause more severe harm, the fact is that far more youth use marijuana than all the other illicit drugs combined. And as long as we focus only on the most severe drugs, we let marijuana "off the hook" and contribute to the mixed messages we're sending our kids.
The fact is, cigarettes and marijuana are now tied as the illegal substance kids report is the easiest for someone their age to buy. (National Household Survey on Drug Abuse)
As parents, doing our best to raise healthy, drug-free youth, it is critical to reinforce the fact that marijuan use is risky and has extensive negative consequences.
First, the short history of the marijuana laws at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm This is funny and fascinating.
Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm The best overall review of the subject ever written. If you haven’t read this book, then you simply don’t know the subject.
The Drug Hang-Up at http://druglibrary.org/special/king/dhu/dhumenu.htm This is another excellent history of the subject.
Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer This is a collection of the full text of every major government commission report on the drug laws from around the world over the last 100 years. They all reached similar conclusions.
The drug laws were the product of ignorance and nonsense. In the US – which has driven worldwide drug prohibition for more than fifty years – the laws were the result of racism and lunacy so stupid that it just makes people laugh today.
Marijuana was originally outlawed for two major reasons. The first was because “All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy.” The second was the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana – exactly the opposite of the modern “gateway” idea.
Only one MD testified before Congress for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The representative of the American Medical Association testified that marijuana was not a dangerous drug and there was no reason for the law. See the full transcripts of the hearings for the MTA at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm
The only other “expert” was James Munch. His sole claim to fame was that he had injected marijuana directly into the brains of 300 dogs, and two of them died. When they asked him what he concluded from this, he said he didn’t know what to conclude because he wasn’t a dog psychologist. He also testified in court, under oath, that marijuana could make your fangs grow six inches long and drip with blood, and that it could turn you into a bat.
Mr. Munch was the only “expert” in the US who thought that marijuana should be illegal so he was appointed US Official Expert on marijuana, where he served for 25 years.
That is just one example of the lunacy. There is far more than that in the history of these laws. Anyone who currently supports these laws simply hasn’t read the most basic research on the subject.
Tobacco is deadly yet legal. We've made great progress reducing use without a prohibition. Imagine the mess illegal tobacco would result in, on top of the health issue.
To say "we are losing a whole generation of kids" is an extreme exaggeration. Nor are we losing our nation. Total alarmist claptrap. Legal pot would be far easier to regulate, keep away from minors, and not ruin lives legally (way worse and more lasting than pot use harms alone)
"Treatment" numbers are due to legal coercion, not voluntary enrollment.
Furthermore, 10,000 people are brutally murdered every year by our country's illegal marijuana suppliers as they fight over the profits and market share of their biggest cash cow - selling marijuana in the U.S. Since it's *impossible* to end the demand for marijuana in this country, the policy that would cause the least amount of harm and save the greatest number of lives would be to allow our stores to sell legally-grown marijuana to adults at prices low enough to prevent illegal competition.
If these *Health Advocates* really cared about the suffering of people they'd drop their arbitrary and futile goal of ending marijuana use and support legalizing marijuana like wine.
And as far as their goal of "reducing marijuana use by youth" - Drug Dealers Don't Card, Supermarkets Do!