Pubdate: Sun, 21 Feb 2016
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2016 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Authors: Rachel Barry and Stanton A. Glantz
Note: Rachel Barry is a researcher at the Center for Tobacco Control 
Research and Education at the University of California, San 
Francisco. Stanton A. Glantz is a professor of medicine and director 
of the center. The views expressed are those of the authors and not 
an official position of the UC.

POT INITIATIVES FAIL TO ADEQUATELY CONSIDER PUBLIC HEALTH

Marijuana, Like Tobacco, Should Be Legal, but Not Socially Accepted.

A Robust Demand-Reduction Program Should Be Created Concurrently With 
Legalization

The Legalization Initiatives Should Be Withdrawn and Replaced With 
One That Prioritizes Public Health

Last July, the University of California Tobacco Related Disease 
Research Program held a meeting in which tobacco control researchers 
discussed their work with marijuana legalization advocates. At the 
end of the day, ACLU Executive Director Abdi Soltani observed, "It's 
ironic that tobacco is completely legal, socially unacceptable, and 
its use is declining, while marijuana is illegal, socially 
normalized, and its use is rising."

That insight has animated our thinking ever since. The ideal 
situation would be one in which marijuana, like tobacco, was legal, 
but its use was not socially accepted. Meeting this goal will be challenging.

Legalization done wrong will lead to a corporate marijuana industry 
that, like the tobacco industry, will use aggressive product design, 
marketing, and, most importantly, campaign contributions and lobbying 
to create a favorable legal environment to sell their products.

The only way to have a chance of treating marijuana like tobacco 
would be to do so from Day One. A politically protected, robust 
demand-reduction program modeled on California's successful tobacco 
control program should be created concurrently with legalization.

Unfortunately, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act and the Marijuana 
Legalization Initiative Statute do not do this.

While giving a nod to public health, as our analysis describes, the 
initiatives' details are consistently tilted to protect a retail 
marijuana industry. There are even industry representatives on the 
committee that will guide implementation of the proposed law.

Advocates for the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, including the 
California Medical Association's Dr. Donald Lyman and Lt. Gov. Gavin 
Newsom, have been circulating a critique of a draft of our report 
that we sent legalization advocates for comment three weeks before we 
finished the report ("One thing we don't want is to make the mistakes 
of Colorado, Oregon, Washington"; (sacbee videos; Feb. 14). As 
planned, we carefully reviewed that critique and used it to revise 
the draft before we released the final report.

The initiative's authors seem to be counting on the fact that few 
will plow through the complex but important details. Even the 
legislative analyst failed to consider the hundreds of millions of 
dollars in health care costs for treating the cancer, heart and other 
diseases an unrestrained marijuana market will create.

The right thing to do now would be to withdraw the initiatives and 
present a new one that truly prioritizes public health over profits. 
If the sponsors don't do that, people who prioritize public health 
should reject these initiatives to send the message that they want 
marijuana legalization done right in 2018.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom