That’s the only conclusion I can gather from this article in the Pioneer Press: Legalization talk cited in teen pot use spike
A discussion of legalizing medical marijuana in Illinois is likely fueling an increase in the number of Park Ridge teenagers using the substance, the Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation contends.
Margaret Polovchak, executive director of MCYAF, said increased dialogue about marijuana legislation in the state leads to a greater public perception that the substance is not harmful, resulting in a growing number of users.
“It has impacted our students’ use rate, as we anticipated,” Polovchak said. […]
During recent meetings MCYAF has been encouraging members to contact state legislators to express their opposition to the bill.
What a bizarrely un-American view! Because Margaret Polovchak thinks (without any causal evidence) that discussions of medical marijuana have caused an increased of marijuana use among teens, we not only shouldn’t pass medical marijuana (regardless of its value or the lives that can be saved), but we shouldn’t even talk about it.
What other conclusion can there be?
Not only is Polovchak opposed to the 1st Amendement, guaranteeing free speech, but she feels that our legislators shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it either.
If Ms. Polovchak really gave a damn about any of those kids at Maine Township, she’d learn enough to realize two critically important things:
- Keeping children from learning is not the job of our educational system.
- If you really want to reduce availability of marijuana to kids, you need to regulate it.
Oh, and a note to Jennifer Johnson, who wrote the article. I’m guessing you must have studied at Maine Township yourself given your ignorance of proper journalism. To allow Polovchak’s bizarre and unsupported (in terms of causality) assertion to stand unopposed is some of the worst journalism I’ve seen.
Funny how Ms. Polovchak is bamboozled by the fact that as more people discuss cannabis-related issues, fewer people show up in support of our current model of prohibition.
Also, she notes that more students in Maine are smoking pot than before. Okay. And? Regardless of whether 0 or 100 out of 100 students smoke pot, pointing out that X number of students out of 100 now smoke pot doesn’t prove anything.
Finally, I often wonder if somebody said something like, “Watching TV has been proven to cause liver cancer”… would newspapers print it, as long as it was an ‘expert’ that gave aforementioned quote?
All that MAY prove is that people are alittle more willing to come out of the closet due to the fact they realize it maybe possible to end the insane laws.
More consuming? No, just more visible.
Another noteworthy omission from the article is any evidence that pot use actually was up in Maine township… I looked three times and there are no numbers offered supporting that. It may well be true, but it’s bizarre not to include them so we know just how much of a “spike” in pot use one legislative sessions can cause.
Towards the end, when, the warriors talked about the next big drugs – inhalants and pills – I wondered if Ms. Polovchak would changer her mind about pot after students actually started going to the ER or dying after adopting the more dangerous drugs.
And yet paracetamol is responsible for the most drug overdoses – another medicine recommended by doctors.
Use in Maine is probably up, as it was reported to have increased in the latest household survey. But what they don’t tell you is that use is pretty constant over a period of years, up some years, down others, if you smooth out the graph you’d understand it’s just oscillating around its axis.
But you may very well be right that it’s reported use that’s up. Just like the so called ‘crime magnets’ of dispensaries. That I can assure you is a case of the increase being just an increase of the reporting of crime. Heck, I recall reading about a fellow in San Francisco that had a couple of pounds of kind bud in his back pack which he intended to sell to a dispensary. He had the misfortune of crossing paths with a DEA agent who recognized the smell and confiscated his pot. He called the SFPD and reported the robbery. Unfortunately of course SFPD could do nothing except to offer their condolences and to tell him it’s legal for the DEA to rob you of your cannabis on the street in broad daylight.
Well what do you know I found a link to the story about the man robbed of his pot by DEA agents:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1570/a01.html?1610
Yeah, people are more willing to speak up if they don’t fear prosecution. Even though in this case the guy had a screw loose.
If use is really up among teens it’s because of the mess this globe is in.
Teens don’t have a right to be upset these days? Teens don’t have a right to be concerned about their future? Teens don’t need an avenue of release or relief now do they?
…“increased dialogue about marijuana legislation in the state leads to a greater public perception that the substance is not harmful, resulting in a growing number of users….
If the dialogue in Maine favors marijuana, chances are really good that marijuana is not as harmful as Margaret Polovchak’s nightly hallucinations of Cannabis Armageddon might indicate.
If Ms. Polovchak really believes increased dialogue about marijuana increases its use, then maybe she would like to keep her big mouth shut about marijuana and everything else she doesn’t like.
Organizations such as DARE and Partnership for a Drug Free America should do the same.
Maine Township is in Illinois, and in Cook County, Illinois, the biggest drug war county in the US.
Of course drug use is up in Cook County. They are a stinking pile of one political party ruling doo.
How many articles in Illinois newspapers have there been the last three months about medical marijuana, versus how many articles related to the drug war, including the the release of the study saying Cook County, IL is the drug war capitol?
I’ll bet anyone there have only been a handful of medical marijauana articles, but there have been hundreds of articles in the Illinois news dealing with the drug war, from drug ring gang busts to crooked downstate Illinois sheriffs in a murder for hire plot surrounding drugs to the latest sports star or celebrity getting outed.
And this Margaret Polovchak teacher’s union lackey blames it on medical marijuana news? She should be fired immediately. EE fucking mediately.
What happens when someone shows her 400 articles dealing with the drug war versus each ONE article on medical marijuana in the Illinois press the last few months? Does her head explode?
Besides Rich Miller on cannabis, there isn’t one single Illinois reporter willing to be fair or honest about the drug war. I gave up and left. Should have done that when I left the Democrats also.
“greater public perception that the substance is not harmful”
Given that there is no conclusive evidence proving marijuana is harmful at all, that sounds like the right direction.
As far as temporary impairment, any activity temporarily impairs in some way.
Give the smartest person today an IQ test in a normal testing environment.
Then give that person that same test to take while riding a roller coaster. Complete idiot would literally be the result, due to the likely inability to answer a single question.
Ask a professional athlete to do anything while they are engaged in their sport. Can a quarterback drive while dropping back three steps to hit his receiver on a slant route? Not even close.
And by the way, how does Margaret Polovchak know that more teens are using marijuana? Do they all tell her?
Another example of the authoritarian mindset at work. The same kind of mindset that completely unselfconsciously would say something like this:
“”Not only are we here to protect the public from vicious criminals in the street but also to protect the public from harmful ideas.” – Robert Ingersoll, first head of DEA
They damn themselves as fascists with their own words, and they don’t even realize they’ve done it.
Hopefully everyone notices this is not from the State of Maine. Up here we are sensible and down to earth and we treat people, even teenagers, that need medical marijuana to deal with chronic or terminal diseases like medical patients not criminals,
Does her head explode?
That would be lovely because they certainly don’t use their reasoning abilities properly now. No pity for their ignorance. Each one of these idiots has the same opportunity to learn the True facts vs. the False.
And even if it was true that there was an increase in teen pot use, and that it really was because of all the talk about medical marijuana, would that necessarily mean that that increase would be sustained? Probably not, because states that have actually already legalized medical marijuana have not seen and increase in use.
I would argue that it doesn’t really matter whether or not “legalized medical marijuana” increases use. Drug use is a personal choice that each person must make for himself. Politicians with the sanctions of people who vote in their elections are essentially saying with their prohibitions on using various drugs that individual human beings are incapable of making a good decision about what substances are put on their bodies. There is really only one form of government that is just and moral and that is self-government. Politicians are in the business of politics because it is profitable if they couldn’t make money selling their votes to the highest bidder they wouldn’t be in politics. Corruption in politics is the rule not the exception and that will always be so because what type of human being are you when you believe that you can mold human beings as if they were passive inert objects and not individuals. Think of the monumental hubris a person must have to believe himself a legislator. It makes me laugh out loud I wish everyone else would wake up and realize the emperor never had any clothes to begin with. Two interesting authors to read Lysander Spooner excellent beginning choices “No Treason The Constitution Of No Authority” and “Vices Are Not Crimes:A Vindication of Moral Liberty” and Murray N Rothbard “The Ethics Of Liberty” and “For A New Liberty”. Good reading and tell your friends.
Ok its impossible not to notice at this point: there is a ton of medical marijuana news coming out of montana right now. Check mapinc to see what I mean.
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Well I wouldn’t call it news. Propaganda is the more accurate description IMHO.
The Pioneer Press papers have never been known for their cutting-edge journalism.