Marijuana Opponents in Daily News Letters to the Editor are Uninformed, not "Valiant"

In recent weeks, Carol Formica has continued her “valiant efforts” of informing our community on marijuana policy in the Newport Daily News. While some of Formica’s framing and context has been a bit problematic, she raised a solid point in her most recent letter. She stated that the most important task for legislators when it comes to marijuana regulation is to protect our children from its use.

However, what Formica doesn’t seem to understand in her many letters to the editor is that regulation actually helps to protect youth from marijuana use, not foment it. In fact, a black market only perpetuates the youth’s open and unregulated access to the drug. If our primary concern is the safety and health of our children, legalizing marijuana for adults with responsible regulations and restrictions is the best option on the table.

In her last letter, Formica brings up another great point. Under the current prohibitionist model, marijuana is readily available to teens. Even in years past, when drug enforcement was at its toughest, surveys conducted as part of the Monitoring the Future study consistently found that between 80 and 90 percent of high school seniors reported that marijuana was “easy” to get.

The simple truth, however, is that this is the result of the current prohibitionist model, and those who have positioned themselves as looking out for young people simply want to perpetuate these failed policies. What the opponents of marijuana regulation don’t seem to understand is that unlike regulated businesses, dealers in the illicit market have no incentive to check age identification or to refuse to sell marijuana to teens.

Opponents of regulation have long contended that regulating marijuana for adult use would send the “wrong message” to teens, leading to greater use. However, a June 2016 study found that the number of teens using marijuana was falling as more states regulate marijuana. In-depth state surveys in Colorado and Washington, suggest modest decreases in rates of youth marijuana use. If making marijuana legal for adults sends the “wrong message” to teens, they apparently, are not listening.

Our experience with alcohol and tobacco has proven that teen substance use can be significantly reduced through smart regulation and honest education. We need these same tools to address teen marijuana use as well. Those successful strategies, however, are not available to us so long as we maintain the status quo. If we truly do care about keeping marijuana out of the hands of children, studies show that regulation is the best method to better accomplish that end.

So let’s join together and protect our communities! Contact your local senator or representative and tell them that we need to protect our children and adopt legislation to regulate marijuana today.