Youth Lead Marijuana Awareness Campaign

Excellent Decisions Guiding Every Day (EDGE) is a student club at both Strong Middle School and Coginchaug Regional High School. EDGE is also the Youth Subcommittee of the Durham Middlefield Local Wellness Coalition both operating under Durham Middlefield Youth and Family Services.

EDGE Students meet during the school year to put on events within school and in the community encouraging peers to make healthy decisions. Activities include: Safe Dates Program, Role Models Program, Safe Sober Prom, Kick-Butts Day (Tobacco), Red Ribbon Week, Drug Facts Week, Sticker Attack, and more. The EDGE Coginchaug High School Students worked on a special project this year in light of an issue they were particularly concerned about.

In partnership with Miranda Creative Marketing Consultants a core group of EDGE members developed 4 peer to peer and 1 peer to adult marijuana awareness campaign. When developing the content for this campaign the students felt there needed to be an important and educational message about the harmful effects of marijuana. Many students stated that they were bombarded with social media advertisements favorable to the consumption of marijuana related products. Also that movies, music, and television can often glorify substance use and market directly to youth. They felt strongly that they were not being well informed on all of the negative or harmful effects of marijuana. Miranda Creative gathered content from the students to help develop graphics to make their message stand out among their peers and throughout the community. The EDGE students are very proud to launch their campaign and to further the conversation around the real effects of marijuana use.

You can find out more about EDGE and the Durham Middlefield Local Wellness Coalition by visiting dmlwc.org or contacting Prevention Coordinator Haley Shoop hshoop.dmlwc@gmail.com For more information about the effects of marijuana and local legislative efforts around legalization visit stoppotct.org