(Keloland Television) Parents are being encouraged to talk to their teens about drugs, specifically marijuana. While you might think alcohol would be the top substance teens try to get their hands on, local drug experts and teenagers themselves say pot is actually easier to get than booze.
[Christy] Alten is the director of the adolescent program at Keystone Treatment Center in Canton. She says 83 percent of the teens treated there have some sort of dependence on marijuana. ‘Sarah’ says she started smoking pot when she was just 14 years old because it was easier to get a hold of than alcohol.
“You don’t have to have an age to be a drug dealer. You don’t have to go find someone who is 21. You just know people who have it and you go find it,” ‘Sarah’ said.
But counselors say marijuana is so dangerous among teens because it leads them to use other drugs.
“Weed became my drug that I would do while I was doing other drugs. Basically, it was a gateway drug for me. It just opened up so many other doors to do so many more drugs because if I could handle weed, I could handle anything because weed was okay,” ‘Sarah’ said.
Counselors also say marijuana is dangerous because drug dealers often lace it with other harder drugs, such as meth, so that teens get addicted to that as well.
I know this is supposed to be a scare story for parents, but I wonder how many of them make the simple connection that the reason pot is easier to get than booze is exactly because it is illegal? “Sarah”’s statements are the best arguments for ending prohibition and regulating marijuana that I’ve read all day. Alcohol dealers must be of age and licensed and can lose that license for selling to minors. Alcohol consumers are carded for ID and must be 21. There is much public education for people about the dangers of alcohol abuse and resources for people who wish to stop abusing alcohol. Alcohol isn’t grouped in the “illegal drugs” category with heroin, meth, cocaine, LSD, Ecstasy, and others, so that when a teen tries alcohol and has a good time and can “handle it”, he/she doesn’t equate good times to all the other “illegal drugs”.
And please, the adulterated weed notion is a laugh. If Johnny Dealer has both weed and meth to sell, he’ll sell weed to those who’ll buy it and meth to those who’ll buy it. It’s not like weed sales are hurting and Johnny Dealer needs a way to pick it up; weed sells itself. Besides, if Johnny Dealer uses his meth to spike weed, he can’t sell the meth to tweekers and he can’t raise the price of the meth weed, lest customers go to Susie Dealer down the block or begin to suspect the weed is somehow spiked. Further, a meth high and a weed high (I’ve done both, I know) are quite different and most mellow tokers aren’t going to like the jittery meth high and Johnny will actually lose customers.
Topics: South Dakota
out of my nose 3 [...]
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Critical to our anti-drug efforts is the need to focus on our schools to ensure that our children are educated in a drug-free environment so that they can learn, develop and participate in more after-school activities that promote positive forms of gratification and diminishes overall unnecessary delinquencies to occur within the minds of our children. Therefore allowing our kids to make sound and responsible decisions. To do this, we must make our government, our schools and our parents accountable for keeping our children off drugs. We have already made significant strides in reducing drug activity in our neighborhoods and our schools and we now are in a position to expand our successful initiatives to arrest and prosecute those who sell drugs to our children. Also, given that kids who learn a lot about the dangers of drugs from their parents are up to 50 percent less likely to ever use, parents should encouraged themselves to have frequent ongoing conversations with their children about the dangers of drugs, specifically the usage of marijuana.
Our drug problem requires the commitment of every level of government and needs to be approached with the recognition it is a global matter. Some of our drug program originates abroad. We, as a society, should understand the need to reinforce the message that those who sell drugs to our City’s youth will be severely punished, and also demand an increase in the current drug free schools zone programs. Anyone caught selling drugs within 1,000 feet of school grounds will be faced with enhanced felony penalties. In some cases criminals fall “prey” to these extended zone requirements and in my opinion learn a hard and just lesson as shown in this post of Zone defense: drug-free school zones were….
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_6_34/ai_87706850/
In regards to the anti-drug messages and there effectiveness, I believe that the broadcasting over the last decade – to overt the dangers of recreational drug use – could have increased considering that four out of ten teens (41 percent of average American children survived) agreed that those messages made them more aware of the risks of using drugs and less likely to try drugs.
Critical to our anti-drug efforts is the need to focus on our schools to ensure that our children are educated in a drug-free environment so that they can learn, develop and participate in more after-school activities that promote positive forms of gratification and diminishes overall unnecessary delinquencies to occur within the minds of our children. Therefore allowing our kids to make sound and responsible decisions. To do this, we must make our government, our schools and our parents accountable for keeping our children off drugs. We have already made significant strides in reducing drug activity in our neighborhoods and our schools and we now are in a position to expand our successful initiatives to arrest and prosecute those who sell drugs to our children. Also, given that kids who learn a lot about the dangers of drugs from their parents are up to 50 percent less likely to ever use, parents should encouraged themselves to have frequent ongoing conversations with their children about the dangers of drugs, specifically the usage of marijuana.
Our drug problem requires the commitment of every level of government and needs to be approached with the recognition it is a global matter. Some of our drug program originates abroad. We, as a society, should understand the need to reinforce the message that those who sell drugs to our City’s youth will be severely punished, and also demand an increase in the current drug free schools zone programs. Anyone caught selling drugs within 1,000 feet of school grounds will be faced with enhanced felony penalties. In some cases criminals fall “prey” to these extended zone requirements and in my opinion learn a hard and just lesson as shown in this post of Zone defense: drug-free school zones were….
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_6_34/ai_87706850/
In regards to the anti-drug messages and there effectiveness, I believe that the broadcasting over the last decade – to overt the dangers of recreational drug use – could have increased considering that four out of ten teens (41 percent of average American children survived) agreed that those messages made them more aware of the risks of using drugs and less likely to try drugs.
- Mike Slinskey
Excuse me, but does this “drug-free” environment where you wish to teach kids have any Coca-Cola machines in the lunchroom?
You do realize that the anti-drug messages broadcast over the past decade have been shown to increase teen use of drugs, right?
You do realize that teens find it easier to get pot than alcohol, right? Because weed dealers don’t card.
It must be good to be a teenager these days.
I hear about how easy it is to get and yet I frequently find myself dry for weeks, unable to find any.
I haven’t seen a bud in almost 4 weeks :P
I wonder, do teenagers have to make a few calls then wait all day to get word on if any of the “guys” have any or not?
Or are they all growing it in their parents closets and laughing at us working stiffs.
HA! At 40 a quarter for a compressed bag of sticks, stems and seeds, with a little ditchweed in the mix, someone is laughing and it isn’t me.
Also pot and meth are smoked differently. Burning meth in a bowl doesn’t work. But cooking pot in a bubble will work… kinda.
Lacing pot with meth will only makr the pot taste bad and smell worse.
[...] South Dakota teens say marijuana easier to get than alcohol [...]
If I recall correctly, South Dakota was the only state where a popular referendum legalizing medical marijuana was turned down.
Here’s a hunch about some possible results. I can’t prove anything but hear me out.
Suppose that a fair number of people who smoke pot in SD are self-medicating. Not a majority, by any means, but a significant minority.
Now suppose that referendum had passed. It’s very likely that ALL of the medically-qualified people–who are all adults–would be in the legit market. They wouldn’t be waiting for a dealer in a parking lot or looking to score at some dirty night club.
As a result, the market demand for pot would be smaller. It would be handled medically instead. There would be more dispensaries and fewer dealers.
Well, going into the pot business (illegally) becomes less profitable and less attractive.
So the supply side becomes a little smaller because there are fewer dealers.
With more dispensaries and fewer dealers, you have more pot available for patients and less available to kids.
You also take away the Johnny Outlaw image from pot smokers and replace it with Charlie Cancer Sufferer.
Prohibition helps kids finds pot by ceding the market to dealers.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men…”