Pubdate: Fri, 08 Nov 2013
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/qFJNhZNm
Website: http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Howard Weissman
Note: Howard Weissman is executive director of the National Council
on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse-St. Louis Area.

LEGALIZING MARIJUANA MEANS CHILDREN WILL BE TARGETED

Citing the recent Gallup poll which announced that 58 percent of
people support marijuana legalization, the Post-Dispatch editorial
board suggested now is the time for Missouri to jump on the
pro-legalization bandwagon. Between the potential new jobs and sources
of revenue, legalizing marijuana seemed like a viable solution to some
of Missouri's problems.

While a majority of Americans appear to favor legalizing the use of
marijuana, far fewer people are enthused about legalizing its sale.
Indifferent acceptance of adults using marijuana is a long way from
endorsing the creation of a new Big Tobacco-like industry producing,
promoting and selling marijuana to our kids - an inevitable
consequence of legalization.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse-St. Louis Area
recognizes that marijuana is not as harmful to most people as our two
already-legalized killers, alcohol and tobacco. However marijuana is
not harmless; its known deleterious effects on motivation,
intelligence and mental health are most pronounced on its youngest
users.

The pro-marijuana lobby assures us they do not want teenagers smoking
pot; there will be penalties for selling to minors and products will
not be marketed to teens. Neither the NCADA nor the pro-legalization
community wants to see more kids smoking marijuana. So, to avoid
repeating past mistakes, I recommend that we take a pragmatic look at
the underage use of alcohol and tobacco.

Prohibition ended in 1933. Eighty years later, is there anyone who
thinks that we're doing a good job of controlling underage drinking?
Here in Missouri, alcohol is used by teenagers at six times the rate
of marijuana. And four times more kids smoke tobacco than marijuana.

Legalizing marijuana will lead to lower cost, broad availability and
deliberate and effective marketing to kids. Legal marijuana will be
sold like alcohol and tobacco. And it will be sold to our children.

Alcohol and tobacco companies target kids. They strenuously deny it,
but they do it anyway. They must. Alcoholic drinkers make up 10
percent of those who buy beer yet they account for over 60 percent of
sales. And the single best way to create alcoholic drinkers is to
start them young.

We know that if a kid can delay the first drink until the age of 21,
his/her chance of developing a dependence on alcohol diminishes by a
factor of five. We know that the human brain is not fully formed until
the mid-20s. And we know that alcohol has powerful, damaging effects
on the still-developing brains of teenagers. Yet we allow
multinational corporations to profit by pitching alcohol to our
children. From Spuds MacKenzie to Jay-Z, we need look no further than
Pestalozzi Street to see the cunning and amoral power of
multimillion-dollar marketing.

A 2010 campaign for Camel No. 9 cigarettes was clearly designed to
attract teenage girls. Their ads, which ran in magazines such as Vogue
and Glamour (along with promotional giveaways like flavored lip balm
and wristbands), were a hit with girls ages 12 to 16, according to a
study published in Pediatrics.

History and common sense tell us that if marijuana becomes legal,
these tried-and-true tactics will be used to attract new users. When
marijuana becomes big business, it will require addicts to generate
profit. And to create addicts, Big Marijuana will target youth,
exactly as Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco have been doing for 80 years.

Until we take underage substance use seriously, we will continue to
watch 10 percent of children grow addicted or die. Alcohol contributes
mightily to every major cause of death in youth yet we, as a
community, seem largely unwilling to do anything about it.

So unless we can demonstrate that we care about our kids as much as we
care about our freedom to drink or smoke, then we're not ready for the
full legalization of another drug that, for one out of six kids, will
lead to dependence and a host of problems.

For now, the NCADA favors the limited decriminalization of marijuana.
But as long as parents, school administrators and citizens enable
underage substance use and allow the purveyors of addictive products
to target our children, we believe it's a mistake to unleash the
commercial interests that will make a third legal, mind-altering drug
more available to youth.