Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
Newsletter for June 24, 2019 Vol. #5 Issue #10
Living near marijuana dispensaries makes youth more likely to use it, study finds
The Los Angeles Times
By CITY NEWS SERVICE
JUN 17, 2019 | 5:10 PM
Young adults who live in neighborhoods with a higher number of medical marijuana dispensaries use pot more frequently than their peers and have more positive views about the drug, according to a study released by the Rand Corp.
The results were strongest among young adults who lived near dispensaries that had storefront signs, suggesting that regulating such advertising could be one strategy if policymakers are concerned about curbing use of marijuana, according to Rand.
The study is the first to show that storefront marijuana signage is extremely influential and substantially magnifies the associations between higher density of medical marijuana dispensaries with greater use of marijuana and positive views about the drug, according to the think tank.
Based on research from the same project, the city of Los Angeles adopted an ordinance in 2018 to restrict some storefront and billboard advertising.
“Our findings suggest that as the marijuana retail outlets become more visible and more numerous, they may influence the way that young adults perceive and use marijuana,'' said Regina Shih, the study's lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at the nonprofit research organization.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, and 33 states now having some type of medical marijuana law. In addition, California and nine other states allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use.
Although research supports some medicinal benefits of marijuana, youth who frequently use cannabis are more likely to experience negative consequences such as increased risk of mental and physical health problems, school drop-out, relationship problems and motor vehicle accidents, according to the Rand researchers.
They analyzed survey results from 1,887 people aged 18 to 22 who live in Los Angeles County and have been long-term participants in an ongoing Rand project examining multiple factors about the use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. Most of those in the study were in college or trade school at the time of the survey. The study is published online by the journal Addiction.
Small shops, heavy advertisers less likely to ID for tobacco
Misti Crane
Ohio State News
June 24, 2019
Young people are less likely to be carded for cigarettes in certain types of shops, particularly in those that heavily advertise tobacco, a new study has found.
When researchers who were 20 and 21 visited a variety of shops in a city on the verge of implementing a law prohibiting sales to people younger than 21, more than 60 percent of cashiers didn’t ask them for identification, found the study, which appears online in the American Journal of Health Promotion.
And these young adults slipped by without an age check most often when they visited small stores, tobacco shops and shops plastered with tobacco ads.
“Our findings suggest that certain types of stores — tobacco shops, convenience stores and those with a lot of tobacco advertising — are more likely to sell tobacco to a young person without checking his or her ID,” said Megan Roberts, an assistant professor of health behavior and health promotion at Ohio State, and a member of the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“One implication of this finding is that enforcement may benefit from targeted outreach and monitoring at these locations.”
The study included fieldworker visits to a randomly sampled list of 103 tobacco retailers in the summer of 2017. The visits were made in Columbus, Ohio, where enforcement of a new Tobacco 21 law had not yet begun.
The plan was to get a baseline idea of how young adults on the edge of the cutoff age were being carded in the city, information that could potentially drive future enforcement decisions, said Niru Murali, who participated in the study as part of her undergraduate work in Ohio State’s College of Public Health.
Though the frequency of carding found in the study was low – and disappointing from a public health standpoint – it aligned with previous research, she said.
The most interesting new information found in this study was that certain retailers were less likely to ask for ID, Murali said.
More than 64 percent of grocery stores checked IDs, compared with about 34 percent of convenience stores and tobacco shops. Bars, restaurants and alcohol stores were even less likely to card the fieldworkers: only 29 percent requested ID.
“In addition to variation by type of store, we saw that those that heavily advertised were less likely to card us. It makes sense, if you think about it, that people who are plastering their windows with tobacco ads probably are trying to make a lot of money off those products and may be more likely to look the other way when selling to a young adult,” Murali said.
Retailers are supposed to card anyone who looks younger than 30 under the Columbus Tobacco 21 law. The idea behind the city’s law, and others like it, is to decrease the long-term health toll that tobacco takes by preventing young people from starting to smoke. Previous research has shown that those who start by the age of 18 are almost twice as likely to become lifelong smokers when compared to individuals who start after they turn 21.
Murali said strategic enforcement is important, and it may be helpful for those enforcing the laws to be sensitive to the fact that they present a financial hit, particularly for small business owners.
“From a public health standpoint, we’re trying to stop people from smoking initiation that has an effect on the rest of their life. But from the business perspective, tobacco is a huge source of income for them,” she said.
“I think it’s going to be really important to work on this during enforcement – how do you make this an easier pill to swallow for folks who are losing income?”
Added Roberts, “Having a minimum legal sales age for tobacco is important for reducing youth access to tobacco. Not only does it prevent young people from purchasing tobacco for themselves, but it prevents them from buying tobacco and distributing it to other, often younger, peers.”
Amy Ferketich and Brittney Keller-Hamilton, both of Ohio State, also worked on the study.
The National Cancer Institute supported the research.
Fewer teens are drinking. But a group of pediatricians is begging parents to be vigilant
The Washington Post By Jessica Lahey
June 24 at 9:00 AM
I’ve always believed that I was a responsible drinker in college because my parents allowed me to have sips of their alcoholic drinks here and there, that drinking was no big deal for me because my parents made it no big deal when I was growing up. When I went on a high school trip to Italy, nearly everyone on the trip took advantage of the lower drinking age and got fall-down drunk every night, whereas I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed each morning, ready to sightsee and learn.
And then, in my 40s, I became a full-blown, fall-down, daily-drinking alcoholic, and my theory fell apart.
Now that I have two older adolescents of my own, am six years sober, and have spent the past five years teaching teens in a substance abuse rehab, I am desperate for some evidence-based messaging that really works to keep kids sober until they are old enough to responsibly forge their own relationships with alcohol.
Thanks to a newly released policy statement on Alcohol Use by Youth from the American Academy of Pediatrics, I found it.
['Safe' teen drinking: Here's why parents shouldn't facilitate it]
Alcohol is the addictive substance most widely used by adolescents, and its use is associated with the leading causes of death for teens, including suicide, car accidents and homicides. The National Institute of Drug Abuse just released its 2018 report, Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2018, that combines data gathered from about 45,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders in public and private schools across the United States on their drug and alcohol consumption. The good news is that alcohol use by older adolescents is in decline, and in some age groups, it’s at the lowest rates ever reported.
That said, the number of teens who engage in underage drinking remains concerning. Nearly 60 percent of 12th-graders and one-quarter of eighth-graders report having drunk alcohol.
When teens do drink, they drink differently than adults. Teens are more likely than adults to binge drink, defined as four or more drinks on one occasion for women and five or more drinks over two hours for men. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) disputes this standard, indicating that these numbers are based on adult consumption and do not take adolescents’ smaller physical size and neurological immaturity into account. The AAP recommends the definition for adolescent binge drinking be reduced to three or more drinks for children ages 9-13 and girls under 17, four or more drinks for boys 14-15, and five or more drinks for boys 16 and older.
Whatever the measure, any binge drinking is dangerous, but it’s even more perilous for adolescents. Teens who binge drink report higher rates of driving while intoxicated, speeding, risky driving, and are at higher risk of alcohol poisoning and death. Greater alcohol intake has also been associated with increased rates of smoking, illicit drug use, risky sexual behaviors, hazardous driving and accidents, physical fighting, fewer hours of sleep and lower grades.
By the time kids hit puberty, their brains are nearly the same size as adults’, but they are profoundly dissimilar on a structural and cellular level. Adults have fully formed brains, complete with mature frontal lobes, but adolescents do not. The frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex, the origin of all that adult, higher-order thinking, are the final parts of the brain to mature and connect. These areas won’t be fully online until the mid-20s, and in the meantime, the lower, more primitive structures in the brain that trade in emotion, rewards and novelty are in charge. As a result, teens tend to gravitate toward emotional and psychological highs, risks and new, exciting experiences before they have the cognitive ability to check those impulses.
The adolescent brain is capable of incredible learning and cognitive resilience during this phase of development, but it is also acutely vulnerable, and alcohol can do serious, permanent damage. Several studies show that frequent drinkers don’t perform as well as nondrinkers on tests of memory, verbal learning and attention.
If you don't think Vaping is addictive...
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