Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
As More States Green-Light Recreational Pot, Educators Adapt Prevention Efforts
by LAURA FAY | November 14, 2017 The 74
With California poised to become the sixth state to allow recreational use of marijuana, educators are grappling with how to adapt their anti-drug policies to a new reality where pot is sold at local dispensaries and advertised on billboards.
The state will follow in the footsteps of Colorado by using taxes from marijuana sales to fund education and prevention efforts for kids.
California will begin issuing licenses in January for the legal sale of recreational marijuana. The law, known as Proposition 64, will allow adults 21 and over to possess, purchase, consume, and share up to an ounce of marijuana.
Three other states plan to allow recreational use by 2019, and many more have eased up on prohibition by allowing medical marijuana.
It can be difficult for administrators to explain to kids why it’s OK for adults — sometimes just three years older than a high school senior — to use marijuana and not them.
“[Teens] think that if it’s legal, it must be OK,” said Pam Luna, a consultant with the RAND Corporation.
Stanton Glantz, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine who focuses on tobacco, e-cigarette, and marijuana issues, said the marketing of marijuana complicates the issue. A RAND study released last year shows that marijuana advertising is associated with a higher likelihood of use one year later.
“It’s just everywhere now, and the market hasn’t been fully opened,” Glantz told NPR. “It’s the same thing as alcohol and cigarette advertising. It is all directed at normalizing it and presenting it as a fun thing to do.”
Big Tobacco finally tells the truth in court-ordered ad campaign
NOV 27 2017, 8:37 AM ET NBC NEWS by MAGGIE FOX
Smoking kills 1,200 people a day. The tobacco companies worked to make them as addictive as possible. There is no such thing as a safer cigarette.
Ads with these statements hit the major television networks and newspapers this weekend, but they are not being placed by the American Cancer Society or other health groups. They're being placed by major tobacco companies, under the orders of the federal courts.
"The ads will finally run after 11 years of appeals by the tobacco companies aimed at delaying and weakening them," the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund said in a joint statement.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to 'fess up and tell the whole truth."
The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals.
"Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
"It has been a long fight," said Robin Koval, CEO and president of Truth Initiative, a nonprofit established as part of a separate, 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between major U.S. tobacco companies and 46 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories.
"They fought for 11 years to delay the truth."
Suicide, alcohol, drug deaths projected to soar in Ohio
Updated Nov 21, 2017 at 2:24 PM
Fueled largely by the opioid epidemic, Ohio’s drug, alcohol and suicide death rate could soar by 47 percent in the coming decade.
A study released Tuesday projects Ohio’s mortality rate from those three causes will total nearly 75 per 100,000 deaths or 11th highest in the nation by 2025, up from the current rate of 51 per 100,000 deaths or 13th in the U.S.
Nationally, drugs, alcohol and suicide could take 1.6 million lives over the coming decade, a 60-percent increase over the last 10 years as substance abuse and suicide have contributed to a decrease in Americans’ life expectancy for the first time in 20 years.
“These numbers are staggering, tragic — and preventable,” said John Auerbach, president and chief executive officer of the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group that commissioned the report with Well Being Trust.
“There is a serious crisis across the nation and solutions must go way beyond reducing the supply of opioids, other drugs and alcohol. Greater steps — that promote prevention, resiliency and opportunity — must be taken to address the underlying issues of pain, hopelessness and despair.”
Not surprisingly, drug overdoses make up about two-thirds of the drug, alcohol and suicide death rate in Ohio. According to state statistics, a total of 4,050 drug overdose deaths, largely from opioids, occurred in Ohio last year, an increase of 33 percent from 2015.
The report notes that the state has been particularly hard hit by the rapid growth of prescription opioids starting in the late 1990s and a more-recent rise in use of heroin cut with potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil. For instance, in the first two months of 2017, almost all the overdoses in 24 Ohio counties involved fentanyl or an analog, with death rates highest in Appalachian counties.
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Wood County Prevention Coalition Meeting
Friday, Feb 9, 2018, 08:30 AM
Wood County Educational Service Center, 1867 N Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH
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About Us
Our Vision: Helping youth be drug-free, productive and responsible citizens.
Our Mission: We are a coalition of compassionate community members working together to coordinate high quality programs for the prevention of youth substance abuse in Wood County.
Email: mkarna@wcesc.org
Website: wcprevention.org
Location: 1867 Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
Phone: (419)-354-9010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCPCoalition
Twitter: @woodpccoalition