Pubdate: Wed, 20 Mar 2013
Source: Stranger, The (Seattle, WA)
Copyright: 2013 The Stranger
Contact:  http://www.thestranger.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2241
Author: Dominic Holden

THE KIDS ARE... JUST FINE

Is Legalization Actually Driving More Kids to Use Pot?

A news article that went national last week sensationally spun the 
results of a drug-use survey to imply that Washington State students 
may be smoking more pot due to the state's new legalization law. But 
it turns out that pot use isn't up. It's steady, even down a little bit.

The Healthy Youth Survey, released last Thursday by state officials, 
is a biennial trove of data used as the gold standard for gauging 
risky behavior by students, including smoking, drinking, and using 
drugs. An Associated Press story blared that pot is twice as popular 
as cigarettes, while adding that "the number of high school students 
who believe using marijuana is risky is also at a low point." It went 
on to quote Washington health secretary Mary Selecky, who said, "As 
the perception of harm goes down, use goes up." As a result, the 
article explained, officials "expressed concern that marijuana 
prevention efforts aren't ready to ramp up in response to the new state law."

In other words: Pot is really popular, kids think it's less harmful, 
and that leads to higher pot use.

So I pressed state officials for data on pot use among 10th 
graders-the same grade used to compare pot and tobacco 
consumption-because the article never cited those figures. If the 
declining perception of harm causes use to rise, the numbers should 
bear that out. Once I got the data, though, the numbers showed that 
while perception of harm has dropped significantly over the last 
decade, pot consumption among 10th graders remained basically flat. 
Regular use actually declined slightly, from 20 percent to 19 
percent, in the last two years.

So despite the sensational contrast with cigarettes and the warnings 
of state officials, pot use isn't spiking among teens.

Why is pot twice as popular as cigarettes (which are actually riskier 
than marijuana)? Largely because society invests a lot of money in 
anti-smoking education campaigns. "Smoking has dropped tremendously 
in the last 10 years," says health department spokesman Tim Church. 
And while Selecky warns that legal pot will send a bad message to 
kids, Initiative 502 is designed to do the opposite. The tax revenues 
we start collecting this December will raise an estimated $110 
million for drug-abuse prevention and education each year. That's 
money we don't currently have, and it's dedicated to discussing the 
actual risks of marijuana-not hyping fear.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom