Friday, September 28, 2012

Racial disparities in advertising

As I have blogged about before, if approved Initiative 502 would create a marijuana industry similar to the alcohol and tobacco industries.  I-502 contains restrictions on marijuana advertising that are similar to alcohol advertising restrictions -- it does not ban advertising in mass media (television, radio, newspapers, magazine, the Internet) and it does not ban marketing to youth.

While there are multiple studies that prove that alcohol and tobacco companies market to youth, a recent report highlights how alcohol ads target African American youth.  According to the report,  African-American youth ages 12-20 see more advertisements for alcohol in magazines and on TV compared with all youth ages 12-20.

Alcohol is the most widely used drug among African-American youth. At least 14 studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising and marketing, the more likely they are to drink, or if they are already drinking, to drink more.

“The report’s central finding—that African-American youth are being over-exposed to alcohol advertising—is a result of two key phenomena,” said author David Jernigan, PhD, the director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing & Youth. “First, brands are specifically targeting African-American audiences and, secondly, African-American media habits make them more vulnerable to alcohol advertising in general because of higher levels of media consumption. As a result, there should be a commitment from alcohol marketers to cut exposure to this high-risk population.”

A marijuana industry would act no differently than the alcohol and tobacco industries.  If marijuana is legalized, it will only be a matter of time before African American and all youth are exposed to advertising messages created just for them.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Teens don't use marijuana because . . .

Check out this new movie theater slide developed by Safe Yakima Valley and ESD 105!


Monday, September 24, 2012

Drug policy myth-busting

"Although some drug reform advocates talk about prisons overflowing with otherwise innocent first-time drug users, that is a myth; over 90 percent of those in prison for drug-law violations admit involvement in drug distribution, albeit often in very minor roles," according to the non-partisan RAND Drug Policy Research Center in their recently released paper: The U.S. Drug Policy Landscape - Insights and Opportunities for Improving the View.

While the paper highlights problems associated with supply reduction activities, the authors highlight one positive outcome:  ". . . supply control is not futile" because enforcing drug laws imposes costs on the drug supply network, and "those costs are presumably passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.  Contrary to a once-prevalent myth, higher prices really do reduce drug use and initiation, and they also encourage cessation."

Friday, September 21, 2012

Legal, regulated drugs continue to be trafficked

Legalizing marijuana will not rid our state of drug trafficking and related criminal organizations.  Just check out what's going on in Virginia with legal and regulated cigarettes:

What kind of illegal smuggling has the highest profit margin for criminals? Moving heroin? Cocaine? Guns?

No. It's cigarettes.  

Cigarette trafficking has become so lucrative that it is attracting organized crime and former drug smugglers . . . 

. . . the profit margin on illegally trafficked cigarettes is now higher than on cocaine, heroin, marijuana or guns. 

. . . cigarette smuggling has existed for years. But as the discrepancy among states' tax rates has widened in recent years, the problem has worsened.

"We see data in the field that just in the last year it is blooming in the commonwealth . . . because Virginia has the second-lowest cigarette tax in the nation, at 30 cents a pack (2010 figures give Missouri's tax as the lowest, at 17 cents). Every state to the north has a higher tax, and by the time you reach New York state, the tax is $4.35 a pack."

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Marijuana snow cones?

A few days ago, I wrote about I-502 opening the door for the development of a marijuana-infused food industry in our state.  Such businesses already exist for medical marijuana.

A reporter from KPLU recently attended the "Medical Cannabis Cup" in Seattle and wrote about the marijuana-infused food that was offered in the "outdoor medicating section".  Cotton candy and snow cones were among the medications.  Here is a photo published with KPLU's story:


Credit Ashley Gross / KPLU
Snow cones were just one of the options for ingesting marijuana at the Medical Cannabis Cup

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

News Tribune: marijuana legalization bad for juveniles

Earlier this week, the News Tribune published an editorial about I-502: Juvenile marijuana use: the fatal flaw of Initiative 502.  Here are a few excerpts:

. . . Legalization would likely produce a surge of dope smoking among teenagers who now avoid it simply because it is stigmatized as illegal.

Kids notice what adults consider acceptable, and not all of them are hell-bent on rebellion. Federal data suggest that most adolescents either avoid alcohol and drugs, or only experiment with them.


. . . Some of that difference can be explained by perceptions of what is legal among their elders. Legality will inevitably make marijuana more attractive to youth. Mere advertising campaigns aren’t likely to counteract that effect – especially since marijuana marketers will be doing their own advertising under I-502.
The initiative also wouldn’t shut down the black market or the drug cartels, as its supporters hope. For example, sales would still be forbidden to those under 21 – but does anyone believe that dealers will stop selling to them?
There may be ways to legalize or decriminalize marijuana for adults without creating a wider snare for juveniles. It would be nice if I-502 could do that. It’s likely to have just the opposite effect.

Friday, September 14, 2012

"Legalization of more drugs, such as marijuana, will lead to more addiction"

Earlier today, I posted an excerpt from the Reality-Based Community blog about the high-potency marijuana that would dominate a legal market.  In their post, they include a link to an article called, "The changing face of American addictions".  The article includes an interview with Psychologist and addictions researcher Keith Humphreys, PhD.  He expresses concern that legalizing more drugs, including marijuana, will increase drug addiction rates in our country.  Here is an excerpt from the interview:


Q: In your view, are some addictions more harmful than others, and what are they?
A: In terms of damage to population health, the deadliest addictions are to alcohol and tobacco, because they are legal, and therefore, easy to access, inexpensive, skillfully marketed and widely available.
Children and adolescents are the group that suffers the most from addictive drugs, for two reasons. First, because their brains are still developing, they are particularly likely to become addicted when they use. You hardly ever, for example, meet an addicted smoker who didn't start smoking as a teenager. Second, unlike someone with an addicted boyfriend or sibling or friend, children don't have the power to escape an addicted parent. They may therefore endure years of coping with the addiction and with the emotional and physical abuse that their addicted parent dishes out.
Q: What measures would help reduce addictive behavior in the U.S.?
A: Higher taxes on alcohol, increased restrictions on the advertising of tobacco products, more careful prescribing of pain medication by doctors, and greater availability of addiction treatment would all be helpful. Some progress has been made on all these fronts, but the basic political problem is that when a drug is legal (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, prescription pain medication), it is hard to regulate. Industries that sell the products make large campaign contributions and hire armies of lobbyists which keep taxes and regulation on their products as minimal as possible. That's a key reason why the legalization of more drugs, such as marijuana, will lead to more addiction.

Legal marijuana = high potency marijuana

Over at the Reality-Based Community blog, they discuss how high-potency pot would dominate a legal marijuana market.  Here's an excerpt:


With marijuana, as with so many other things, where one sits influences where one stands. Relative to the U.S. population as a whole, people who write about public policy regarding marijuana (e.g., college professors, newspaper editors, drug policy analysts, Internet users and drug legalization activists) are disproportionately college educated and middle to upper-middle class. They therefore are prone to assume that the type of marijuana — specifically potent sinsemilla (THC content 10-18%) — that is popular with better-heeled users is more commonly consumed than it is.

As Caulkins, Hawken, Kilmer and Kleiman’s book Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know makes clear, sinsemilla is in fact a small part of the marijuana market. About eighty percent of the market is “commercial grade” cannabis, which has a THC content of about 5% and sells for $70 to $230 per ounce, depending on how far a buyer is from the producing farm and in what amount he or she buys. If that level of potency and price surprises you, you are probably an observer or participant in the small, nationally unrepresentative marijuana “upmarket“.

The reason for the current dominance of commercial grade pot is simple: It’s an inexpensive product for a price-sensitive population. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the marijuana market had an upmarket skew, but no longer. Today, Caulkins and colleagues estimate that college-educated people only account for about a 1/7 of all marijuana smoked in the U.S., and they overwhelming smoke sinsemilla. The vast bulk of marijuana consumption in the U.S. today is accounted for by working class and poor people who are heavy users. If you make $75,000 a year and smoke pot once a month, springing for high-potency sinsimilla is easy. But if you make $18,000 a year and smoke several joints every day, commercial grade pot is all you can afford.

However, as Caulkins et al. show, the only reason marijuana is expensive is because it is illegal: After all, it’s just a plant. Indeed they project that the post-legalization cost of sinsemella joints would be so low that businesses could give them away, much as bars now give away peanuts . . . 

. . . What difference would this make? . . . parents would be displeased that their children could now easily afford high-potency marijuana, which even in secondary black market sales would be extremely cheap.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Legalizing marijuana candy & cookies


Marijuana-infused products provide a perfect example of why marijuana policy is more complicated than the "regulate it like alcohol" slogan.  If marijuana is legalized, all marijuana products -- not just smoked marijuana -- will be manufactured and sold.  Products likely would include candy, cookies, and beverages that appeal to youth.

Below are just a few marijuana-infused products that are already produced.





Year in and year out, youth substance abuse prevention advocates run into stiff opposition when advocating for the tight regulation of tobacco and alcohol products that appeal to youth.  When advocates are successful, manufactures often find ways to skirt new policies.  Legalizing another drug that is harmful to youth would establish a whole new industry that will need to be constantly monitored.  A whole new industry that will act no differently than the tobacco and alcohol industries and market products to youth.

Friday, September 7, 2012

"Anticipated public health costs of marijuana legalization are significant"

Over at Join Together, a commentary by Dr. Stuart Gitlow, a member of the American Medical Association's Council on Science & Public Health and Acting President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, has this to say about marijuana legalization:


With Election Day just around the corner, voters in multiple locations will again be confronted with cannabis-related questions . . . 

In each case, there is a less-than-subtle approach to licensing and regulation, with excise taxes, fees and other revenue generating components representing a critical argument used in favor of passage . . . The legislatures in each state appear to have ignored the many associated costs which will quickly swallow the revenue described. This includes increased utilization of the drug at younger ages with associated addictive and physical illness, diminished productivity caused by cognitive abnormalities, and increased drugged driving and associated morbidity/mortality.

In July, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) considered the question of marijuana legalization, concluding:

1)  That physicians lead efforts to oppose legislative or ballot initiatives that would result in the legalization of marijuana production, distribution, marketing, possession and use by the general public, and that all physicians incorporate screening and intervention for risky substance use, including marijuana use, as well as diagnosis, treatment and disease management for addiction into their routine medical practice;

2)   That public education campaigns be undertaken to inform the public that addiction associated with cannabinoids is a significant public health threat, and that marijuana is not a safe product to use, especially, but not only, by smoking;

3)   That parents be informed that the marijuana their children are exposed to today is of much higher potency than the marijuana that was widely available in the 1960s through the 1980s, and that the potential for the development of addiction and for the development and progression of psychotic conditions are enhanced when high-potency marijuana products are used by adolescents because of the unique vulnerability of the adolescent brain;

4)   That when cases of marijuana-related substance use disorders are identified and the diagnosis confirmed by professional assessment, carefully monitored treatment to establish abstinence be offered to afflicted persons and such treatment and insurance coverage for it be readily available;

5)   That drugged driving associated with marijuana use be subject to additional epidemiological research and research on the treatment needs of drivers. Increased efforts are needed to prevent its occurrence which should include substantial legal consequences at the level of the consequences for drunk driving;

6)   That, given the significant role the criminal justice system plays in discouraging marijuana use, states promote programs that enhance linkages between the criminal justice system and the addiction treatment system, using models such as Drug Courts and HOPE Probation.

ASAM asserts that the anticipated public health costs of marijuana legalization are significant and are not sufficiently appreciated by the general public or by public policymakers. Physicians and other health professionals must become more aware of the anticipated undesirable outcomes of marijuana legalization and encourage public education on these facts.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Loopholes weaken drug regulations

Much of the current debate around drug policy includes the notion that regulations keep legal drugs -- alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs -- out of the hands of teenagers.  Regulations certainly can keep drugs out of the hands of youth and WASAVP often advocates on behalf of stronger regulations and higher taxes on drugs.  However, regulations often fall short -- sometimes because drug industries finds loopholes in regulations.  The tobacco industry provides a perfect example.  From Sunday's New York Times:

Give the tobacco industry credit for ingenuity. Just when it looked as if federal regulators could block their ability to addict children and young adults, several companies that make cigars and pipe tobacco have sidestepped the barriers by taking advantage of loopholes in federal law. 

One loophole involves a law enacted in 2009 that raised the federal tax on cigarettes, small cigars and roll-your-own tobacco, partly to deter smoking among young people and partly to help pay for a children’s health insurance program. Larger cigars and pipe tobacco, however, were taxed at a much lower rate.

Some manufacturers then relabeled “roll-your-own tobacco” as “pipe tobacco” to qualify for lower taxes. Similarly, some cigar makers made their small cigars slightly heavier to qualify for the lower rate. With just a small increase in weight, a small cigar can qualify as a large cigar, for tax purposes, even though it more nearly resembles a typical cigarette and can cost as little as seven cents a cigar.

It seems clear that the regulatory steps designed to keep tobacco products out of the hands of young people are not working as well as they could. This is no accident. A report issued on Aug. 27 by Representative Henry Waxman . . . cited internal documents from several manufacturers that revealed deliberate plans to manipulate existing products and create new ones to evade taxes and flavor bans.

As we continue our conversation about marijuana legalization, the strength of regulations should be considered.  Not the theory of regulations, but the realities of how regulations are implemented and enforced.  A legal and regulated marijuana industry would be no different than the current legal and regulated drug industries.