Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jan 2011 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2011 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: Vincent Carroll Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?277 (Cannabis - Medicinal - Colorado) NOT SO FAST, MR. SUTHERS "I confidently predict that marijuana use by teenagers in Colorado will increase again in 2011 and that medical-marijuana proponents and the legislators who voted for dispensaries will deny any connection." - - Attorney General John Suthers, when asked by The Denver Post for a New Year's prediction. Ouch! Come on, John, show some mercy and take your boot off our necks. There, that's better. OK, I'll admit it, the attorney general has a point. Medical marijuana supporters (I'm one of them) are due some soul-searching given the latest data from the University of Michigan's annual survey that shows pot use rising among teens for the third year in a row. Even the lead researcher on the study, Professor Lloyd Johnston, thinks "there's a good chance that widespread discussion of the medical marijuana issue, and more recent discussions about fully legalizing the drug, may be conveying the notion that it's not as dangerous." Nor can you blame Suthers for his cynical expectation of how some medical marijuana proponents will react, especially those invested professionally in the cause. In a recent article in The Post, for example, Brian Vicente of the pot advocacy group Sensible Colorado suggested that if anything, medical marijuana had made the drug less glamorous to teens "because it's viewed as something that your mom or elderly people use." Please. Still, medical marijuana enthusiasts who refuse to admit the policy might have tradeoffs are hardly the only ones wearing blinders. The more implacable opponents of dispensaries and decriminalization, Suthers included, rarely acknowledge the social costs of the war on pot or its toll on personal freedom and civil liberties - or even that some dispensary patients actually are seeking pain relief as opposed to a recreational high. Sure it's reasonable for Suthers and Johnston to suspect that the emergence of dispensaries and the debate about possible legalization might be sending an unintended message to teens. And full legalization, if it happens down the road, could well boost marijuana's use - at least at first. But how much pent-up demand is there, really? After all, a drug's popularity is only marginally related to its legal status. Most of us who never touch marijuana could get our hands on it if we wanted to. We simply have no desire for it. Many non-users detest even being in the vicinity of someone smoking marijuana. I know I do. Alcohol is legal and not hard for teens to get. Yet that same Michigan study that noted a rise in marijuana use found that "alcohol use continues its long-term decline among teens into 2010, reaching historically low levels." For 12th-graders, alcohol consumption is lower than at any time "since the study's inception in 1975." (For adults, alcohol consumption seems to have peaked way back around 1830 - see W.J. Rorabaugh's book "The Alcoholic Republic" - at which point public attitudes about heavy drinking began to shift.) Colorado's new laws governing dispensaries, if properly enforced, should end the sloppy free-for-all that tarred the industry during its first 18 months and reduce the number of outlets. Meanwhile, if one unintended side effect of dispensaries happens to be slightly higher use in the wider population - might be, I should say, since the Michigan study involved the entire country and most states don't allow medical pot - there's absolutely nothing to say that this consumption uptick must be permanent. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom