Wall Street Journal
Letters to the Editor
Pot Prohibition, Regulation and Danger to the Young
January 28, 2013
The defenders of the status quo say that we can’t end marijuana prohibition because it “sends the wrong message to the kids” and will increase teen drug use “” by Mitchell S. Rosenthal, op-ed, Jan. 17).
Ironically, prohibition is a complete failure when it comes to keeping young people from using drugs. Despite decades of DARE programs with the simplistic “Just Say No” message, 50% of teenagers will try marijuana before they graduate. Young people also feel the brunt of marijuana enforcement and make up the majority of arrests. Arresting young people will often cause more damage than drug use itself. Teenagers need honest drug education to help them make responsible decisions. We have cut down on teen smoking without tobacco prohibition and without one arrest.
Tony Newman
Drug Policy Alliance
New York
Mr. Rosenthal contends that legalizing marijuana for adults will increase use among young people through ease of accessibility. However, there seems to be some confusion about the difference between prohibition and regulation. Under prohibition, regulators have no control over where the product is sold, who sells it or to whom they sell it. We see that reflected in the fact that it is easier for teens to obtain marijuana than it is alcohol. One is prohibited (marijuana) and one is regulated (alcohol). Under regulation, cities and states get control over the selling of marijuana, including making decisions about how close marijuana selling outlets can be from schools, the hours they can operate and impose penalties for those who supply minors. This is control. And control works. In the states that have passed medical-marijuana laws, youth marijuana use has decreased. If communities are concerned about access to marijuana by young people, regulation and education are the keys. Prohibition exacerbates the problem.
Amanda Reiman, Ph.D., MSW
San Francisco
Our research shows that addiction is a disease with origins in adolescence. The younger teens are when they first use marijuana, the higher their risk of developing addiction. Individuals who say they first used marijuana before age 15 are 10 times as likely to meet the criteria for addiction involving marijuana at some point in their lives as those who say they first used the drug at age 21 or older. Young marijuana users are also more likely to engage in other substance use; 97% of high-school students who have tried marijuana have used another addictive substance.
The time has come to view marijuana and other risky substance use, especially by adolescents, as a public-health problem, and addiction as a medical condition. As a nation we want to ensure that our children grow up healthy and safe. To accomplish this goal, we need to implement evidence-based measures to prevent and reduce risky substance use, such as incorporating screening and brief intervention into routine health-care practice and reducing underage access to addictive substances like marijuana.
Emily Feinstein
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University
New York
According to Dr. Rosenthal, “Among the many thousands of adolescents we have treated at the programs of Phoenix House over the past four decades, the overwhelming majority have used no drug more potent than marijuana.” I’d bet the overwhelming majority also used alcohol and tobacco, both of which are potentially more potent and deadly than marijuana but apparently are not considered “drugs” by Dr. Rosenthal.
And I’d guess that many, if not a majority, of teen patients in his program are there not because they need treatment but because a court gave them the choice between treatment and jail.
We agree with Dr. Rosenthal that marijuana is not harmless. This is why our society should impose common-sense controls over who can legally produce marijuana, who can distribute it, who can consume it and under what circumstances its use is lawfully permitted. Two states just took this step. More will follow.
Paul H. Kuhn
Chair
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Nashville, Tenn.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy