A federal official with a top health agency recently gave some tips to states that are moving to legalize marijuana, specifically as it concerns deterring youth use.<\/p>\n
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Tom Coderre spoke about cannabis policy during a webinar hosted last week by the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches To Marijuana (SAM).<\/p>\n
While he made clear that he\u2019s concerned about youth marijuana consumption and cannabis commercialization generally, it was notable that the SAMHSA official seemed to recognize the inevitability of legalization, going so far as to suggest that states could use marijuana tax revenue to support public education programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to figure out what to do to grapple with how to best regulate this new market, and there are several evidence-based prevention approaches that that our stakeholders\u2014local, state and federal government\u2014can consider for preventing marijuana use,\u201d Coderre said.<\/p>\n
\nHe first listed two things that legal marijuana states are already broadly doing: imposing taxes on cannabis sales and preventing retailers from selling marijuana to people under 21 \u201cto help prevent, or at least reduce, younger age groups\u201d from accessing the products.<\/p>\n
\u201cReducing youth exposure to marijuana marketing, obviously, can help prevent or reduce marijuana use among youth and young adults,\u201d he added. \u201cThe strategies can include anything from banning advertising on television, radio, billboards and social media, and limiting advertising with youth audiences, such as advertising on any of the forms of local, state and national media.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also important to fund, and support funding for, public health media campaigns. States and communities can develop public health media campaigns to promote evidence-based messages about youth marijuana use, leading to reduction in youth use,\u201d he said. \u201cPublic health prevention campaigns that discuss the harms of certain products have been effective in preventing and reducing youth substance use.\u201d<\/p>\n
With respect to funding those initiatives, Coderre said that \u201cwe really need to get states to invest in these, and they can invest in them using the taxation revenue they\u2019re getting from from marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr the federal government is providing lots of resources to states right now. They can use those resources to get started,\u201d the official, who also worked on drug policy issues like legalization as a senior advisor to former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D), said.<\/p>\n
SAM President Kevin Sabet responded that, \u201cI love all of that,\u201d adding that there\u2019s a need to modernize education campaigns as media consumption trends shift.<\/p>\n
While Coderre, who also served a Rhode Island state senator, emphasized that steps need to be taken to prevent youth use, it\u2019s also the case that recent surveys\u2014including one conducted by SAMHSA<\/a>\u2014have found that adolescent cannabis consumption has been declining<\/a> in recent years, even as more states are enacting legalization.<\/p>\n The official\u2019s advice on state cannabis policy is yet another signal of the normalization of the legalization movement.<\/p>\n In October, a representative of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) also offered some tips to Maryland lawmakers<\/a> who are exploring marijuana legalization in anticipation of placing a referendum on the issue before voters next year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Services has been working to give state-legal marijuana businesses clarity<\/a> on filing federal taxes and other issues as they\u2019re largely shut out of traditional financial institutions under prohibition.<\/p>\n Another Washington City Moves To Decriminalize Psychedelics, With Unanimous Council Vote<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer. <\/em><\/p>\n The post Top Federal Health Official Says States Can Use Legal Marijuana Revenue To Help Deter Youth Use<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A federal official with a top health agency recently gave some tips to states that are moving to legalize marijuana, specifically as it concerns deterring youth use. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Tom Coderre spoke about cannabis policy during a webinar hosted lastContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51871,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51870\/revisions\/51871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Top Federal Health Official Says States Can Use Legal Marijuana Revenue To Help Deter Youth Use<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"