MEDICAL MARIJUANA DOES NOT INCREASE TEEN USE PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE 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. 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 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 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. 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) PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: Stephen Heath, MAP Media Activism Facilitator =.

Focus Alert Archive