Pubdate: Sun, 13 Apr 2014
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Page: B1
Copyright: 2014 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Bob Young

NEW POT LAWS HAVE PARENTS WORRIED ABOUT EFFECT ON KIDS

Some Want to Bring Drug-Sniffing Dogs into Schools

Concerned the Law Sends Wrong Message

Rob Levin was stunned to hear that his son, a ninth-grader at
Seattle's Roosevelt High, was already smoking pot with his friends.

Levin was even more disturbed to hear his son say kids were dazed and
confused at school, taking hits from smokeless vaporizer pens in
classes and hallways.

"I was politely in the school's face about this," said Levin, a
lawyer. He wrote Roosevelt's principal, "roundtabled" with other
parents and has been pushing school officials to bring drug-sniffing
dogs into Roosevelt.

He also helped organize a recent meeting for parents at the school
featuring Dr. Leslie Walker, chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle
Children's. Among other warnings about pot, Walker said she knew a boy
so high that he didn't feel anything while a dog "gnawed his arm to
the bone." She declined to be more specific.

Although it's still illegal for minors to use pot and it remains a
felony to sell pot to minors, parents like Levin are growing anxious
about Washington's voter-approved law legalizing adult possession of
weed.

They're worried the new law sends a message that pot use is endorsed
by adult society and not risky. They're concerned about the Seattle
Police Department's sometimes liberal approach to marijuana. They're
clueless, they fear, about new trends such as "dabbing" hash oil and
discreet "vape" pens that don't give off the telltale odor of pot.

Even sponsors of the new pot law see a need for high-profile
educational messages, similar to government-produced TV ads in
Colorado, the other state to legalize adult use of pot. Some say
Washington should already have started such a campaign, before pot
stores open in a few months and kids are exposed to giddy media images
of adults using pot. Roger Roffman spent his career as a marijuana
researcher and dependence counselor. A University of Washington
professor emeritus, Roffman said he greatly respects Walker and
believes pot can seriously harm some teens.

But Roffman, whose new book "Marijuana Nation" details his own
compulsive pot use nearly 40 years ago, said there's another part of
the story parents should know. Most teens, including almost two-thirds
of the seniors at Roosevelt, don't use pot with any regularity,
according to surveys. And many do it occasionally without harm, he
said.

"This is a time because of the sea change in policy when hyperbole can
lead us to be up-in-arms or afraid," he said. Roffman said he'd like
to get past exaggeration and scare tactics to accurately convey the
risks of marijuana.

As a model, Roffman points to a brochure produced by the University of
Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute.

It's rooted in science, but not alarmist. It details pot's potentially
harmful impact on memory, driving, developing adolescent brains and
people vulnerable to psychosis. It urges teens to hold off on pot
until they're 21.

Roffman is frustrated that state government hasn't done more to spread
such messages.

A sponsor of Initiative 502, he said after the election he urged the
state Liquor Control Board (LCB) while it was crafting marijuana
regulations to require new pot stores to give each purchaser an
educational flier similar to the UW brochure. He even wrote to the
governor's office.

Beyond that, he said, the state should've convened top thinkers on
science, prevention and the evolving industry, added expert
fundraisers and crafted messages to deter youth access, impaired
driving and the use by adults with health vulnerabilities.

"And none of that has happened," he said. "It's really
discouraging."

The response from state officials: We're working on
it.

Waiting on money

Brian Smith, spokesman for the LCB, noted the primary obstacle: The
state hasn't yet received money earmarked by I-502 for prevention and
education messages.

The initiative calls for spending a significant amount of
marijuana-excise taxes from recreational-pot sales on preventing youth
drug use and abuse and educating people with accurate information
about the health risks of marijuana use.

But that money isn't expected to start flowing into the state treasury
until retail-pot stores open in July.

In the meantime, Smith said, state officials are moving ahead
proactively on two ads, featuring Walker.

One of the public-service announcements will emphasize basic facts:
It's still illegal for minors to possess pot; still illegal to drive
while high; still illegal to consume in public.

Another ad will advise parents on how to talk to kids about marijuana,
Smith said.

The state is also preparing, he said, a "consumer's guide" brochure to
be handed out at retail stores - similar to what Roffman advocated.
And they've produced marijuana-fact brochures with the UW.

The ads are being produced in-house by the state Traffic Safety
Commission. One is a radio spot, the other for TV, said agency
spokeswoman Erica Stineman. The commission will produce a longer
educational video with Walker intended for parent and driver-safety
groups, Stineman said.

Total budget for those messages is $1,300, she said. The agency is
also applying for a $50,000 federal grant to produce ads about
pot-impaired driving, she said.

Smith said the state doesn't have the money to run the first ads on TV
stations.

The hope is to use social media to promote the ads, he said, and to
have local substance-abuse-prevention groups implore local stations to
run the ads, especially in smaller markets outside Seattle.

"There are no marijuana revenues, so we're using resources and
expertise available to us. You make do and be as strategic as you can
until money is available," he said.

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) didn't wait for the
tax money to flow.

"I came on the job in April (2013) and said, 'This is going to be a
big deal, let's go for it,' " said Amy Ford, CDOT communications manager.

The agency applied for a federal grant from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration to curb impaired driving. It received
$450,000. It organized focus groups to learn what messages would work
best with the target audience of young men.

Three 30-second public-service announcements were created for TV. They
started airing March 10. The recurring theme in the cheeky ads is you
can now do things like grilling while high, but you can't drive to get
the propane you forgot while baked.

Research showed the target audience wouldn't respond to
finger-pointing or scare tactics, said Emily Wilfong, who oversaw the
ad project. "What resonated most was informational with a tinge of
humor," she said.

The ads are not specifically aimed at teens, but they address impaired
driving, a chief concern of youth use. And while parents have the most
influence on teen behavior, educational campaigns have proved to sway
attitudes of minors about tobacco.

But for all its foresight, Colorado didn't air the ads until after pot
stores opened there in January, not long before, as Roffman has called
for in Washington.

Drug-sniffing dogs

Levin said he voted for I-502 and admits to experimenting with pot
while a high schooler himself. But hearing that his son and friends
were getting stoned in the ninth grade - primarily to be cool, he said
- - was just "earlier than all of us anticipated."

He believes his son probably will make smart choices about drugs and
alcohol, just as he said he did in his youth, but he doesn't want to
risk him getting arrested or kicked off a sports team.

In any case, he said, "it's definitely not OK to use pot in and around
school." Particularly after Roosevelt Principal Brian Vance reported
last month the number of students disciplined for using drugs or
alcohol at school has doubled, up from 12 last year to 24.

Levin started brainstorming with other parents.

One idea that made some sense, he said, is bringing in drug-sniffing
dogs.

Levin maintains that courts have found drug dogs to be legal. Seattle
police might use drug dogs in a school if a criminal investigation
turned up evidence that warranted such a step, said police spokesman
Sean Whitcomb. But the use of dogs would be specific and targeted as
opposed to random and preventive, Whitcomb said. "There is no random
drug-sniffing that we'd conduct in any setting," he said.

As for perceptions that Seattle police have been lax about enforcing
pot laws, Whitcomb pointed to an investigation last year that led to a
Ballard man being sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling pot to
middle-school and high-school students.

Even when police handed out bags of Doritos with educational messages
affixed at Hempfest, Whitcomb noted, the messages emphasized that
minors shouldn't have pot.

"We understand the concerns and have a robust educational program
designed to inform students about the dangers of drug use," said
Lesley Rogers, spokeswoman for Seattle Public Schools. "As for using
K9 units, we would certainly cooperate with any Seattle Police
Department investigation."

Alison Holcomb, chief author of the new pot law and criminal-justice
director for the ACLU of Washington, called the drug-dog idea
"horrible." Roffman said such tactics were "egregiously harmful." Even
Walker from Seattle Children's was iffy, saying "things that scare
people don't work."

The idea, Levin emphasized, is not to bust kids, haul them off to
jail, or even suspend them. It's to deter them from bringing pot to
school.

"We have the opportunity right now to get in front of this issue," he
said. "I'm just kind of shocked there isn't more happening."

[sidebar]

Resources about marijuana

UW Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute: learnaboutmarijuana.org (links
to other pages)

Brochure for adults: learnaboutmarijuanawa.org/brochure
814.pdf

Seattle Children's hospital guide for parents: 
www.preventionworksinseattle.org/uploads/Parent-handbook_Oct2013.pdf

Colorado Department of Transportation TV ads: youtu.be/22jcBvUx3Sw

youtu.be/mDo5MMYxEiM

youtu.be/lP7UtU_e5FA 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D