Arizona Educators Manage Major Cannabis Concerns

Arizona voters made recreational marijuana legal in 2020, kickstarting an industry that was already closing in on the state.
Within a few months, advertisements displaying products available in local dispensaries could be found on most city streets. While this was a sign of progress for some, for educational institutions, it was a cause for concern.
“As an educator, I am deeply concerned about both the short-term and long-term harm that increased marijuana use may have on the development of our young people and ultimately on society,” said Arizona State University President Michael Crow in an opinion piece he authored through AZCentral. “This represents a challenge for leaders in education from middle school on up. We have a responsibility to ensure that young people are aware of the risks.”
Available statistics appear to validate Crow’s concern. According to the 2018 Arizona Youth Survey in Maricopa County, marijuana was the third most common substance used within 30 days of the survey, with 15.7% of the survey base reporting use.
That number is only preceded by alcohol (20.2%) and e-cigarettes (19.9%), both of which are legal substances, and therefore more easily accessible to the youth surveyed. The same holds true for reported lifetime use, where nearly one-third of the youth population reported using marijuana at some point in their life. This number is also a marked increase from the 2008 Arizona Youth Survey, where only 13.8% of youth reported using marijuana in the last 30 days.
The reported use stayed largely unchanged in the 2020 survey, but the numbers did show an increasing number of youth are obtaining marijuana from within their own support systems. With nearly 10% of the survey population receiving their marijuana from home, and 17.7% receiving it from relatives, this increase could represent an increasing acceptance of youth marijuana use within the home.
It is that exact notion that substance use prevention organizations are attempting to prevent.
“The challenge for us when it comes to [legal] marijuana is it normalizes it, as if it has no harmful effects for young people,” said Jamal Givens, who has worked to educate students about the dangers of substance use for 20 years, “I think the cannabis industry...utilize certain tactics, saying it's ‘not as bad as alcohol,’ ‘you don’t have a hangover,’...and so youth see these things...not knowing the ramifications.
“I don’t personally believe that the cannabis industry in Arizona is targeting youth,” Givens explained. “But when you’re [advertising] on those social media channels, what goes out, goes out. It doesn’t just hit the adults 21 and up.”
This is especially concerning to Givens because of the increasing use of social media as a way to connect in a world that has been shut down because of COVID-19. As a result, the organizations in which he is involved have been increasing their presence on social media as well.
“Our young people get on social media a lot more due to the pandemic...because they’re home 24 hours a day,” Givens said, “Youth have gotten more involved in social media, therefore seeing more information, and maybe misinformation, about the harmful effects of cannabis.”
College students are particularly impacted by this. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s yearly “Monitoring the Future” Study, college students’ use of marijuana reached an all-time high of 44% amid the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Despite the rising prevalence of social media, Givens prefers his usual method of reaching out to students.
“I like having a conversation with young people, [instead of] just lecturing at them,” he said. “Being face to face with them, being in the classroom, doing workshops, being able to hear their version of what’s going on in the community.”
The Arizona Youth Survey will not release data again until early 2023, until then Givens and other educators will continue to work to teach students about the effects of recreational cannabis use.