This 2011 Reefer Madness propaganda is Anslinger Approved!

It’s end-of-year retrospective time!  While my colleagues on the NORML Blog (go check out the new look that matches the new site) are going to bring you the biggest marijuana news stories of 2011, here at The Daily Stash Blog we’re going to bring you stories that may have fallen through the cracks of other drug policy 2011 remembrances.

Today we bring you the Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011.  ”Reefer Madness”, of course, is the 1936 anti-pot propaganda film showing young people becoming crazed and violent on the effects of “reefer”.  Today, we use “Reefer Madness” as shorthand to describe the hysterical warnings by the anti-drug zealots as reported unchallenged by a complacent media.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011.  Thursday we’ll cover the Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011.  Friday we’ll cover the Top Ten People in Marijuana of 2011.

Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011 (audio mp3)

10. Oregonian editorial board hypes fears of medical marijuana and teen pot smoking

(The Oregonian – “Seeing through the smoke” editorial) It’s about time someone took action on the increasing number of medical marijuana dispensaries. … Right now, anyone, including teenagers, can apply [for a medical marijuana card]. A study done by Oregon Partnership found, for example, that 35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.

Unlike the Oregonian editorial board, I check sources (I work for NORML: I have to.) The survey they refer to was addressed at a Marshall High community town hall meeting. The poll was conducted by students as part of a project called “SMASH” in a “confidential, random, peer-to-peer” survey – meaning one high school kid asking another high school kid. We have no control group, no control for confounding variables, not even a mention of the survey size or the randomness of those polled (maybe the SMASH kids are more likely to “randomly” speak to their friend, for instance, or stood in the hall and talked to anyone passing by who would answer.)

But besides all the methodological issues arising from trusting the polling data of high school kids talking to their friends, it’s important to note what their survey actually said:

PERCEPTION: Students surveyed believed that 8 out of 10 students smoke marijuana

REALITY: 7 out of 10 students DO NOT smoke marijuana

Kids surveyed thought 77.3% of others were smoking marijuana.  76.07% of kids never smoked marijuana, another 12.27% smoked it once or twice a month.  So, kids think 3 out of 4 other kids smoke pot when 3 out of 4 kids actually don’t.  Where, oh, where could the kids be getting the message that youth cannabis smoking is out of control, when, in fact, Oregon’s 12th grade monthly cannabis use rates have declined 14% (before | after) since 1999, when medical marijuana got underway in Oregon?

9. Papa John’s Pizza supports driver who reported medical marijuana patient to police

You would think that pizza delivery companies would understand who their customers are and that a great number of them smoke marijuana.  If you’re a pizza delivery company in Colorado, you’d understand that many of the marijuana smokers in your delivery area may be legally using cannabis for medicinal purposes.  But apparently Papa John’s pizza in Colorado doesn’t care too much about its drivers violating the privacy of its customers who are medical marijuana patients.

(9News) The man was smoking medical marijuana just before the pizza arrived on Friday evening. The delivery driver smelled the marijuana and called the cops. The Papa John’s employee, who was not identified, was concerned because the customer’s 9-year-old daughter was in the house.

8. The annual scaremongering about marijuana-laced Halloween treats begins now

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Glen Walsh said parents should definitely inspect the candy their children bring home after trick-or-treating.

Walsh said a pungent smell or an odd taste can serve as indicators on whether the food contains marijuana. As for the potency of the marijuana-laced prodcuts, Walsh said the level of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, can vary from zero to over 90 percent.

OK, so watch closely, parents.  You don’t want your kid getting a candy with 0% THC in it.  But if you find any of that 90% THC stuff, you can send it my way for proper disposal.

How stupid is this?  First off, if there is a person out there who would intentionally hand THC-laden treats to children, they are a criminal.  They’d be just as likely to poison Halloween treats or put pins or razor blades in them.. which is an urban legend with no truth to it whatsoever.

Second, if you are a person who uses THC-laden treats for medical or recreational purposes, why are you handing out a $20 “Buddafinger” when you could pass out a 20-cent “Butterfinger”?  You want to be so sure some kid you don’t know and won’t see gets high that you’ll spend 10 times more on Halloween candy?

7. Portland Reporter Anna Canzano: A medical marijuana-hating sheriff’s best friend

[Oregon Sheriff's Association President] Tom Bergin said at the rate Oregon is going, he believes Oregon is three times sicker than California. Why? Well, more than 90 percent of cardholders say they’re using pot to treat pain — not glaucoma or cancer — as the bill was initially marketed.

Here are the facts from the state’s medical marijuana program registry:

• There are 49,220 medical marijuana patients
• There are 44,756 patients who indicate chronic pain as a qualifying condition

So Canzano, Bergin, and every prohibitionist who scoffs at people in serious pain treating it with a non-toxic herb pull out their calculators and exclaim “90% of cardholders are using it for pain, not glaucoma or cancer!”  (The number is actually 90.9%.)

What Canzano distorts lies in the word “not”.  Under Oregon law, a registry cardholder can qualify under more than one condition.  The state even puts “A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition” right there on the website where you got the numbers to crunch.  Are we to believe people with cancer and glaucoma don’t suffer chronic pain as well?

6. Florida Woman Sues Over Being Arrested for Sage

A woman in Florida who was arrested for felony marijuana possession is suing for wrongful arrest. She might just have a case, she was charged with marijuana possession even though the bag they caught her with turned out to be Sage. 49 year old, Robin Brown says a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy caught her while she was bird watching back in March of 2009. He used his field kit on the herb she had in a bag, and said that in the field it tested positive for marijuana. The deputy sent the 50 grams of substance to a state crime lab.

Her lawsuit says that she was arrested before the test was performed. Her arrest was ordered by the Assistant State Attorney, Mark Horn, in June of 2009. She was arrested at her place of business, Massage Envy in Weston. She said that she was arrested in front of co-workers and her customers and subjected to a full body cavity search during her overnight stay in jail. When her lawyer discovered the herbs had not been tested a second time, he used the courts to force the tests which determined what Ms. Brown was contending all along, her sage was completely marijuana free.

5. Teen dies after plastic fumes scar lungs, media blames synthetic pot

The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser. The chemicals in the drugs caused extensive damage to his lungs. Brandon was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September.

So, we’re to assume here it was the K2 that scarred the boys lungs and not the freakin’ fumes from the melting plastic of a PEZ dispenser?!?

Tonya Rice told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper Brandon was put on a respirator in June after smoking Spice fake cannabis, which is said to be ten times more dangerous than cocaine.

Not to be cruel or insensitive about the boy’s death, but he didn’t suddenly die from the acute effects of K2 use.  He used it in June, fell very ill, was given a double lung transplant, and died from an infection because of his lowered immune system in October.  So, to compare, we have cocaine, which can give you a heart attack by overdose and kill you the minute you snort / smoke / inject it, versus a synthetic cannabinoid smoked through plastic, requiring a double lung transplant, leading to a fatal infection four months later in the hospital that kills one boy.  We’re not trying to say K2 is safe – it isn’t – but it’s not “ten times more dangerous than cocaine”.

4. CASA’s Joe Califano blames marijuana for Arizona shooter

I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

So as we continue to think about this killer and his deranged mind, we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana?

Gee, Joe, what do you think we ought to do?  Make marijuana illegal?  Lock up people who use it?  Break down their doors at night and shoot their dogs?  Use helicopters and infrared to eradicate the plant wherever it’s grown?  Throw billions at American and Mexican law enforcement for armor and weapons to fight its traffickers?  Train dogs to sniff it out?  Drug test employees, high schoolers, even middle schoolers to detect its use?

The facts are that 1% of the population exhibits schizophrenia, whether it is 1979 and 60% of high school seniors have tried marijuana or it is 1992 and 33% have tried it.  A study of 186 UK mental hospitals found no increase in schizophrenia or psychosis admissions, despite use rates of cannabis increasing greatly during that decade.

3. UK Daily Mail: Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Oh, dear.  From zero deaths* in 5,000 years of human use to ’30,000 a year’.  That sounds serious.  Let’s read on…

More than 30,000 cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors warn today.

Wait, “could die”?  We’ve gone from the active headline verb “kills” to the lede adverb “could”?  Usually you bury that wiggle room somewhere in paragraph umpteen.  Continue…

Professor John Henry, a leading authority on the drug, said the change – due to take place this summer – had undermined doctors’ efforts to highlight the risks.

He said: “Cannabis is as dangerous as cigarette smoking – in fact, it may be even worse – and downgrading its legal status has simply confused people.”

“May be” worse?  Where are the wards full of cannabis smokers?  Britain actually has some level of health care worthy of a civilized (civilised) people.  You’d think the National Health Service would bring these figures up.  It sounds like quite a cost to the government.

2. American Cancer Society says marijuana use can lead to amputation

Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.

In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first.  I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation.  I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.

1. Butt-chugging, vodka tampons, drinking bleach, and other parent-frightening urban legends

(KPHO) [School Resource Officer Chris] Thomas spends his days patrolling the halls of a Valley high school. He’s heard first hand how kids are getting tipsy.

“What we’re hearing about is teenagers utilizing tampons, soak them in vodka first before using them,” Thomas said.

“This is definitely not just girls,” Thomas said. “Guys will also use it and they’ll insert it into their rectums.”

Rather than the traditional beer bong you’d find at a college party, kids are sticking the tube elsewhere to get wasted.

They’re calling it “butt chugging.”

Rrrighttt… young teenage males, typically the most homophobic and self-conscious creatures on the planet, are dropping trou in front of their peers and inserting plastic tubes up their ass to chug beer.  And the vodka tampons?  Huffington Post reports that “the practice remains unverified despite multiple reports of incidents in the U.S. and elsewhere” and that a blogger “conducted her own informal trial to see whether the purported method worked“, where she notes the alcohol dissolves the glue and consistency of the tampon so much it couldn’t be inserted and that even if it were inserted, the burn you’d feel on your sensitive lady parts would not make this an enjoyable drunk.  Plus, the idea that it would help teens avoid detection with no alcohol on their breath is false, as alcohol metabolizes in your breath no matter how you ingest it.

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When one of your cities has more Drug War murders than California, it refocuses your attention on ending the Drug War

The marijuana internets are abuzz with the latest headline about world leaders declaring the War on Drugs to be a failure and calling for the legalization of marijuana. Here are a few:

World Leaders: Time to End Marijuana Prohibition

Who’s Who of World Leaders Call Global Drug War a “Failure”

World Leaders Recommend Ending The ‘Failed’ Drug War

These headlines cover the report released by the Global Commission on Drug Policy yesterday.  However, I think the preceding headlines fail to make an important distinction, one that was not lost on the editors at NPR (emphasis mine):

‘Global War On Drugs Has Failed,’ Former World Leaders Say

MEMBERS OF THE GLOBAL COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY

– Asma Jahangir; human rights activist, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions; Pakistan.
– Carlos Fuentes; writer; Mexico.
– Cesar Gaviria; former president of Colombia.
– Ernesto Zedillo; former president of Mexico.
– Fernando Henrique Cardoso; former president of Brazil.
– George Papandreou; Prime Minister of Greece. [The exception that proves the rule? --"R"R]
– George Shultz; former secretary of state.
– Javier Solana; former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy; Spain.
– John Whitehead; banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial; United States.
– Kofi Annan; former secretary general of the United Nations.
– Louise Arbour; former U.N. high commissioner for human rights; Canada.
– Maria Cattaui; member of the board, Petroplus Holdings; former secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce; Switzerland.
– Marion Caspers-Merk; former state secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany.
– Mario Vargas Llosa; writer; Peru.
– Michel Kazatchkine; executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; France.
– Paul Volcker; former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
– Richard Branson; entrepreneur; founder of the Virgin Group; U.K.
– Ruth Dreifuss- former president of Switzerland.
– Thorvald Stoltenberg; former minister of foreign affairs and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees; Norway.

It’s rarely current world leaders expressing these sentiments.  They seem to only speak out after they are out of office and lacking the power to help end that “failure”.  I’ve been reporting on the “former leaders” who call for an end to the Drug War since 2008:

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox calls for debate on marijuana legalization

Latin American ex-presidents urge US to decriminalize marijuana, rethink drug war

Former UK Drug Warrior: “What harms society is the illegality of drugs…”

Fortunately a few brave leaders speak out while they are still in office:

Argentine president calls for decriminalization of drug use

Jamaica lawmaker calls for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for private use

And when they succeed in decriminalization of drug use, they get amazing results:

United Nations backs drug decriminalization

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

The report itself makes many of the same recommendations NORML has been touting for four decades now.  The former world leaders recommend that we stop ”the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”  They point out that “models of legal regulation of drugs” should be instituted by governments to reduce the power of organized crime and protect the health of citizens and that this “applies especially to cannabis.”  They explain that a realistic government drug policy would avoid “simplistic ‘just say no’ messages and ‘zero tolerance’ policies in favor of educational efforts”.  It’s nice to finally have world leaders, even former ones, recognizing we were and are right.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

Unfortunately, it’s the current ones – the ones who have the power to make these changes – we have to convince… and they’re not budging from their “Schedule I dangerous drug what about the children?!?” rhetoric:

(Los Angeles Times) ”Making drugs more available — as this report suggests — will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe,” said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

More available?  Almost 1 in 4  high school kids can get a bag of weed within an hour and say it’s easier to buy than beer and prescription drugs.  Twenty-five million American adults are using cannabis annually and fifteen million use monthly.  Marijuana is already quite available, it’s just a question of who controls and profits from the market – regulated businesses or violent criminals.

“Legalizing dangerous drugs would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences,” drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said this year.

Administration officials dispute the idea that nothing can be done to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States. A spokesman for the White House drug agency said U.S. consumption peaked in 1979, when surveys showed that 14% of respondents had used illegal drugs in the previous month. Now that figure has dropped to 7%.

Remember that when Gateway Gil says “drugs”, he means “marijuana”.  Among 12th graders, monthly use of marijuana peaked in 1978, but amphetamines peaked in 1981, cocaine use peaked in 1985, ecstasy use peaked in 2000, hallucinogen use peaked in 1975, heroin use peaked in 2000, and sedative use peaked in 1975.  Since marijuana is far more popular (15 million annual users) than all other drugs combined (6 million annual users), any movement of the marijuana numbers moves the “drugs” numbers.

And since he brought it up, I’d remind Gateway Gil that his claim of that monthly drug use dropped in half since 1979 came as sixteen states passed medical marijuana laws and two states decriminalized marijuana possession.  Your predecessors warned us that if we legalized marijuana, even in those very specific and limited ways, it would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences.  It’s understandable, since you and your predecessors are bound by law to oppose any move toward legalization, so you can understand when we completely ignore your Chicken Little warnings about legalization.

I knew it would only be a matter of time before Joe Califano and the Center for Substance National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University would get around to blaming the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, on Jared Loughner’s cannabis use:

There has been plenty of media and talking head attention to the weak gun laws that allow purchase of automatic weapons and super size ammunition clips. There has been story upon story, and comment upon comment, bemoaning how easy it was for this mentally deranged young man to buy such a gun and ammunition clip. And the reporting about the twisted mind of Jared Lee Loughner and his erratic behavior has been extensive.

But I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

So as we continue to think about this killer and his deranged mind, we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana?

Gee, Joe, what do you think we ought to do?  Make marijuana illegal?  Lock up people who use it?  Break down their doors at night and shoot their dogs?  Use helicopters and infrared to eradicate the plant wherever it’s grown?  Throw billions at American and Mexican law enforcement for armor and weapons to fight its traffickers?  Train dogs to sniff it out?  Drug test employees, high schoolers, even middle schoolers to detect its use?

Because all that was in effect when Jared Loughner acquired his cannabis.  Arizona hadn’t yet passed medical marijuana.  Arizona already had felony statutes on the books for sales and possession.

The facts are that 1% of the population exhibits schizophrenia, whether it is 1979 and 60% of high school seniors have tried marijuana or it is 1992 and 33% have tried it.  A study of 186 UK mental hospitals found no increase in schizophrenia or psychosis admissions, despite use rates of cannabis increasing greatly during that decade.  (Read up on all my coverage of studies showing cannabis-using schizophrenics have better cognitive functioning, how THC may help schizophrenics, how schizophrenia has not increased with cannabis use increasing, and more in our Stash Schizophrenia Archive.)

Scientists are undecided about cannabis and mental illness. THC is highly psychoactive, so that cannabinoid may exacerbate psychoses.  But CBD is shown to mitigate psychoactivity and reduce psychoses.  Many schizophrenics self-medicate with cannabis for the benefit of the CBD.  If so, it’s more argument for legalization, so users would have a labeled product and know the THC:CBD ratio, instead of buying underground and hoping for the right genetics.

Sorry, Joe, 100 million Americans know cannabis is relatively safe from direct experience.  They won’t believe your scaremongering anymore.

So this is your administration on drugs. Any questions?

Obama drug plan ‘firmly opposes’ legalization as California vote looms
via The Hill

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it “firmly opposes” the legalization of any illicit drugs as California voters head to the polls to consider legalizing marijuana this fall.

The president and his drug czar re-emphasized their opposition to legalizing drugs in the first release of its National Drug Control Strategy this morning.

“Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them,” the document, prepared by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, says. “That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug.”

Is anyone surprised? You shouldn’t be. After all, this is the same Gil Kerlikowske that has said repeatedly that legalization is not in his vocabulary, and publicly stated, “Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.” And this is the same administration that recently nominated Michele Leonhart to head the DEA — the same Michele Leonhart who overruled the DEA’s own administrative law judge in order to continue to block medical marijuana research, and publicly claimed that the rising death toll civilians attributable to the U.S./Mexican drug war “a signpost of the success” of U.S. prohibitionist policies.

Yet, given that national polls now indicate that an estimated one out of two Americans nationwide support legalization, and that a solid majority of west coast voters and Californians back regulating the retail production and distribution of pot like alcohol, it seems politically counterproductive for the administration to maintain such a ‘flat Earth’ policy. So what could possibly be their reasoning?

It’s actually spelled out here, in the White House’s 2010 Drug Control Strategy:

We have many proven methods for reducing the demand for drugs. Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them. That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug. Legalizing drugs would increase accessibility and encourage promotion and acceptance of use. Diagnostic, laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies clearly indicate that marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects, and legalization would only exacerbate these problems.

There it is in black and white — in less than 100 words: The federal government’s entire justification for marijuana prohibition; their entire justification for a policy that has led to the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, that is responsible for allowing cops to terrorize families and kill their pets, that has stripped hundreds of thousands of young people of their ability to pursue higher education, and that is directly responsible for the deaths of over 20,000 civilians on the U.S./Mexico border. And that’s just for starters.

Yet the entire premise for maintaining the government’s policy — that keeping marijuana criminally prohibited “reduces [its] availability and lessens willingness to use [it]” — is demonstrably false. Under present prohibition, more than 1/3 of 8th graders, more than 2/3rds of 10th graders, and some 85 percent of 12th graders say that marijuana is “easy to get.” Even according to the stridently prohibitionist group CASA (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University), more teens say that they can get their hands on pot than booze, and one-quarter say that they can buy marijuana within the hour. That means, President Obama and Gil Kerlikowske, that 25 percent of teens can obtain marijuana as easily — and as quickly — as a Domino’s pizza!

This is your “proven” method for “reducing availability?” Don’t make us laugh.

By contrast, dozens of studies from around the globe have established, consistently, that marijuana liberalization will result in lower overall drug use. For example, no less than the World Health Organization concluded:

“Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly, and is simply not related to drug policy. … The U.S. … stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the U.S., has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in national rates of illegal drug use.”

In fact, NORML has an entire white paper devoted to addressing this issue here.

Of course, the best option to truly reduce youth availability to cannabis is legalization and regulation. This strategy — the same one that we employ for the use of virtually every other product except cannabis — would impose common sense controls regarding who can legally produce marijuana, who can legally distribute marijuana, who can legally consume marijuana, and where adults can legally use marijuana and under what circumstances is such use legally permitted.

But we already know that this option isn’t in the administration’s vocabulary, now don’t we?

I’ve written time and time again that this administration ought to view marijuana legalization as a political opportunity, not a political liability. They obviously aren’t listening. Nevertheless, it is the voters who have led — and will continue to lead — on this issue, and it is the politicians who will follow. Could we expect it to be any other way?

After all it was the federal government that followed the states lead in 1937 — federally criminalizing pot, but only doing so after virtually every state in the nation had already done so. California, for instance, outlawed marijuana use in 1913 — nearly a quarter of a century before the Feds acted similarly. Likewise, it is going to be the states — and California in particular — that are going to usher in the era of re-legalization.

And it will be the Feds who eventually will have no other choice but to fall in line.

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Time for some cannabis science!  First up, Dr. Mitch wonders about the latest CASA report that shows the availability of marijuana to teens is greater than ever, even as we arrest more people and send them to treatment than ever before.

Next, Paul Armentano joins us to tell us about an exciting new Italian study showing cannabanoids to be an effective new anti-bacterial agent to fight MRSA and other bugs that have developed resistence to standard anti-biotics.

And me, I’m still recovering from almost finishing two slices of Triple Habanero Pizza from my hometown Boise, Idaho’s Flying Pie Pizza.  Seriously, guys, you win.  That pizza was so hot I felt like the day I completed the tear-gas training in Basic 23 years ago.  Food should not make your face leak from every orifice.

This year’s survey uncovered “problem parents,” who increase the likelihood that their 12- to 17- year olds will smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal and prescription drugs, because of their failure to:

• Monitor their children’s leaving their home and hanging out on school nights (Monday through Thursday).
• Safeguard their dangerous and addictive prescription drugs, like painkillers and stimulants, from their children.
• Address the problem of drugs in their children’s school.
• Set good examples.

The report notes that 46% of 12-to-17-year-olds report going out of the home on “school nights”, but that only 14% of parents think their teens are going out on school nights.

Perhaps we need to revive the old public service announcement that used to run on television, “It’s 10:00 p.m., do you know where your child is?”

The report also notes that 1/3rd of teens are getting prescription painkillers like Oxycontin and Vicodin by stealing it from their parents’ medicine.  But much of the report focuses on the easy availability of marijuana for today’s teens:

One-quarter of teens know a parent of a classmate or friend who uses marijuana; 10 percent of teens say this parent smokes marijuana with people the teen’s age.

This year’s survey finds marijuana more available than ever, with 23 percent of teens able to get the drug in an hour or less, and 42 percent of teens able to get it in a day or less. It reveals a 35 percent increase over last year in teens who can get marijuana in an hour or less, and a 14 percent increase over last year in teens who can get the drug in a day or less.

More than two-thirds of the oldest teens we surveyed (17-year olds) can get marijuana in a day or less.

In contrast to the success of the public health campaign about the dangers of smoking cigarettes, we have not been as successful in the effort to curb marijuana use.

Maybe that’s because we (a) card kids who try to buy smokes, (b) smokes are legal and thus have no black market profit potential, and (c) the health warnings we give on smokes are actually accurate and meaningful to kids.

For years, CASA has been asking teens: “Which is easiest for someone your age to buy: cigarettes, beer, marijuana, or prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin or Ritalin, without a prescription?”

Over the years, teens have indicated that cigarettes and marijuana are easiest to buy, followed by beer and then prescription drugs.

For the first time this year, more teens told us that prescription drugs are easier to buy than beer.

Much of this can be traced to two phenomena: the rise of internet-based pharmacies that evade much of the controls we place on prescriptions and the increase in over-prescribing of drugs (particularly Ritalin) that provides a ready supply.

Again, I’d note that kids consistently find cigarettes and marijuana easier to get than beer.  Cigarettes we could pin on an 18-year-old age limit and many older teens having 18-year-old friends.  But that 21-year-old limit does seem to make it harder for kids to get.  Why not use that same system for marijuana?

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-06-25.mp3)

Today’s Audio Stash features an interview with Tom Daubert, Founder and Director of Montana Patients and Families United.  Tom tells us about the interesting wording of Montana’s medical marijuana law and how it protects the rights of patients on probation or parole.

For our Cannabis Science we speak with Dr. Mitch Earleywine from SUNY Albany.  The good doctor exposes the frauds behind the latest report from the Centers on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) that claim the “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!” is driving the teenagers insane!!!

And me, I’m heading to the Central Oregon Coast!  I love living close to the ocean.  I’m visiting with all my extended relatives at our biennial family reunion.  I just can’t wait to answer the question, “So what do you do?”

“Well, Great Aunt Millie, I read, write, and talk about marijuana…”