In Colorado and California, marijuana entrepreneurs have used deceptive packaging which is enticing to youngsters. Many candies look like children’s favorites, such Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Gummy Bears. At least nine incidences of marijuana poisoning in children have occurred in Colorado this year. The problem of pot candy is expanding to other states, as the word is out and a “ganja-preneurial” spirit spreads.
There’s a huge business behind pushing cookies, candies and edible forms of marijuana, considered to be safer than smoked or vaporized pot, but these products take longer to have an effect and often lead people to ingest larger amounts to get their “high.” Continue reading Edible Pot Tricks Children→
Thanks to the banning of cigarettes in public places, fewer US teens smoke cigarettes, which is safer for all of us. Now that we don’t have as much second-hand tobacco smoke, why should we put up with second-hand marijuana smoke? It’s probably because we’re bamboozled by propagandists who worship pot as if it’s a god, and evangelize as if it’s a religion.
Let’s Not Support Another Addictive Substance
Let’s not add one more addictive, dangerous substance to the drugs that are already legal. We have many legal addictive substances — alcohol, tobacco, Ambien, Xanax, Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin, Adderall. More options only add to addiction rather than substitute for other choices. The majority of teens who are in substance abuse treatment use marijuana more frequently than alcohol, other drugs and addictive substances. Continue reading Let’s Not Support More Addiction→
By Ben Cort, Board Member, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM); Director of Business Development/CeDAR at the University of Colorado Hospital. The original article is from CADCA’s website.
Last month I was honored to speak at CADCA’s National Leadership Forum about marijuana legalization in my home state of Colorado. I wish I could say that I was caught off guard by the reaction I received but I wasn’t. It’s the same everywhere. When people hear what is going on, when they see the pictures and advertisements, the reactions are inevitable; shock, outrage, anger, even fear.
I live in Colorado, work inside of substance abuse treatment, am in recovery myself and I have three young children in public school, that’s my platform.
Make no mistake about it, we did not just legalize weed in Colorado we christened the commercialization and industrialization of the marijuana industry in Colorado. We welcomed in a new industry that knowingly promotes an addictive and harmful substance SO THAT PEOPLE COULD MAKE MONEY. The business of business is to make money and when there is money to be made people will signup no matter how messed up the means are. Let’s take a quick look at how the money is and will be made inside of this industry.
As of this writing there are 47 stores in Colorado that can sell recreational weed, there are about another 300 in the queue. Already the competition is fierce and the marketing wars are heating up, imagine what will come next. Right now we have everything from free T-shirts with your weed purchase and take-out orders to home delivery and a $1 joint when you show your ski pass for the day. For these businesses to continue making the huge money they are making they will need to do two things: 1) engage new users, 2) convert current users to more frequent users.
To differentiate themselves from the competition they will offer the most amount of THC they can for the lowest price possible, sound like some potential for trouble? Our weed in Colorado is so strong (20-30 percent THC in its smoked form) that we have a strain called “green crack.” We also have a full range of edibles and concentrates, these businesses are diversifying and engaging with new (and younger) customers through new products.
Our concentrates, which are advertised aggressively, are 80-90 percent THC, and are often smoked on a super-heated needle and puts the smoker on their back with one hit. Our edibles come in gummies, fruit sodas, suckers, candy and yummy looking baked goods that are so potent that a single pot brownie in Colorado comes with a warning that it has to be cut into fourths before consuming.
I’m guessing the 2-year-old child who ended up in the ER a few miles from my house last month didn’t read the label on the weed cookie she found before eating it.
A smart man learns from his mistakes, a wise man from the mistakes of others. Consider that old saying and the plight of Colorado when considering legalization in your home state.
Supporters of pot reform promised legalization would “regulate” it and keep profits away from cartels. It was “inventive” to think a “weed” could be regulated. In practice, the lure of without much worry about devious marketing practices, kids’ perceptions and the consequences of child abuse. It was national news when 4th graders bought and sold marijuana at a Greeley, CO, school, on two separate occasions during the week of April 21, 2014. Both children had taken the marijuana products from grandparents.
The “trickle-down” effect that comes when pot is promoted for its money-making potential, and the increased usage, have been tragic for children in Colorado and in Washington. A two-year old diedContinue reading Legalized Marijuana: A Lesson in Failure→