(Washington Post) The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana — a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, “the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years.”
A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the survey. The finding heartens advocates collecting signatures to put the question of legalization before California voters in a 2010 initiative.
Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was astonished recently to be invited to contribute thoughts to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “I’ve been thrown out of the ONDCP many times,” St. Pierre said. “Never invited to actually participate.”
Anti-drug advocates counter with surveys showing high school students nationwide already are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco — and that the five states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use permit medical marijuana.
Really? That’s the best you can do? Let’s take a look at the actual numbers from the government’s own surveys:
National Survey on Drug Use & Health, 12-17 age group, 2001-2008 (see SAMHDA)
Indeed, it is impressive that we went from one-third (33.4%) of all minor teenagers having tried a cigarette to now less than one-fourth (22.7%) in just seven years. How did we accomplish that?
Did we arrest those teenagers caught with cigarettes and subject them to a criminal proceeding?
Did we institute random searches of kids’ lockers at school to find cigarettes?
Did we require that any kid who wants to play sports or be involved with extra-curricular activities submit to a urine screening for nicotine and its metabolites?
Did we arrest and incarcerate adults that we caught with tobacco, because doing otherwise would “send the wrong message to the children”?
No. We’ve engaged in terrific anti-smoking campaigns aimed at kids (like thetruth.com), vigorously enforced a law that allows adults to smoke while strictly carding teens, and fostered research and development of stop-smoking aids for those who wish to quit.
Now, another look at the chart shows that, despite the hysteria, the youth who have tried marijuana has steadily declined. Not at the rate of the tobacco decline, but we’ve still gone from around one-in-five (20.2%) to around one-in-six (16.5%) in just seven years. This is while we went from eight medical marijuana states to thirteen and while lifetime use by ages 12 and older increased from 83 million total and 36.9% of the population to 102 million total and 41% of the population.
As for the likelihood that teens prefer marijuana to cigarettes, the government surveys don’t bear that out, either. In the past year, 15% of teens smoked a cigarette versus 13% that have smoked a joint. In the past month, 8.9% have used tobacco versus 6.6% that have used cannabis. So with lower usage rates than tobacco, shouldn’t these anti-drug advocates be arguing for the prohibition of tobacco like marijuana? No, of course not! If anything, their citation of the drastic reduction of tobacco use rates among teens is an argument for treating marijuana more like tobacco.
Topics: Allen St. Pierre, anti-drug, children, cigarettes, Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP, SAMHDA, smoking, teenagers, tobacco, Washington Post
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Awesome post.
In all honesty, as a teenager it was much easier to find pot on the streets than cigarettes or alcohol. Kids in school were selling it to other classmates. Because tobacco and alcohol are behind store counters and not being manufactured on the streets, they were hard to get and felt “more wrong” to acquire since you either had to steal stuff from parents or had to convince an adult to sell to you/buy for you — both are issues with responsible adults/parenting, not kids having easy access.
If you don’t want your kids stealing your medical weed, you might want to responsibly lock it up (same goes for leaving cigarettes on the counter and alcohol in unlocked cabinets).
Just one thing, many school are doing randome searches, by locker or by morning front door searches. Their main goal has been weapons and tobacco at least down here in KY tobacco use is still high among teens. But they do search them for tobacco and they take it then notify the parents.
Not as bad as they do for marijuana but still they are searching our kids in many schools. Not that Im for it or that Im happy about it, its just happening without consent.