Always seeking to educate about the true impact
of marijuana legalization, Parents Opposed to Pot is launching a brand new
YouTube channel. The internet audience is bombarded with pro-pot
messages, and our kids are seeing these false narratives, so we want the
Parents Opposed to Pot channel to be the place where people can learn the
truth. Marijuana is harming people and communities. It is not helping our
country.
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. “Marijuana…Know the Truth” is a new campaign of the Drug Free America Foundation, Inc. Its producers designed two videos to educate the public about the real consequences of marijuana use. The initiative begins with public service announcements (PSAs) that examine the connection between marijuana use and opioid abuse and overdose. A thirty-second commercial begins this week and will run in select movie theaters throughout the country for 10 weeks. The video features a mother, Karen Bailey, who tells the story of how her son started smoking marijuana in middle school. His marijuana use turned into an opioid addiction that ultimately took his life.
Please share the video on your social media and with your contacts.
Drug Free America targets the commercial to cities and states that have been hard hit by drugs and overdose deaths. By a long shot, drugs cause far more accidental deaths in the US than both guns and traffic incidents. To drive home that point, the campaign will run digital PSAs, too. The theater PSAs appear in CO, CT, DC, FL, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, and WV. For theater information, contact Amy at aronshausen@dfaf.org.
The Drug Free America Foundation has a longer version of the video on their homepage. In this video, Karen Bailey explains in more detail the gripping story of how her son’s marijuana use transitioned into an opiate pill problem.
Drug Free Idaho produced a one hour documentary which details the negative outcomes of the marijuana “experiment” in states like California, Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Before we hastily usher in a new commercial marijuana market in other states, it is imperative that parents, pundits and politicians check out the unintended result in these wild, wild, West states.
Aubree Adams of Moms Strong and Dr. Libby Stuyt, medical advisor to PopPot were among those interviewed for the film. The film describes the impacts in the schools, the workplace, on healthcare industry. Companies and doctors are leaving the communities. Leaving them wanting for jobs and adequate health care. Taxes raised on marijuana are not really adding enough revenue into the state to cover the new problems. Lynn Riemer, anti-drug educator, describes marijuana as the biggest problem in elementary, middle and high schools in Colorado.
The impact on families and neighborhoods is also discussed. Hypodermic needles littering public parks where children play is a never before seen problem. Grow houses are being set up in residential neighborhoods attracting unsavory outsiders who pose a risk to safety. A sheriff from the Emerald Triangle explains the difficulty of keeping up with crime and illegal grows.
Please take the time to watch this important film. This film is being freely shared on the internet for you to use in educating your friends, neighbors and elected officials about the problems stemming from taking an illicit drug and trying to legitimize its use.
Parents Opposed to Pot’s mission is to bust the myths about marijuana. Below, we tackle the lies told by marijuana promoters by shedding light on the truths. Informed parents and their children should learn these truths to counter the most popular lies.
1) It causes death. The most frequent types of deaths are suicide, murder, traffic fatalities and child abuse deaths. Just because toxic overdose from pot is rare doesn’t mean that deaths don’t occur. BRAIN DAMAGE is quantitative too. A doctor from the Netherlands, Dr. Martien Kooyman, said chronic marijuana use is “more dangerous than chronic heroin use.”
2) Marijuana is NOT safer than Alcohol. The percentage of adults age 21 and over who use marijuana in the U.S. is roughly between 10% and 13%, vs. 65% who use alcohol. Around 10-15% of drinkers have a substance use disorder, vs. 30% of marijuana users who have Cannabis Use Disorder. If people use marijuana to the extent they use alcohol, the damage will surpass the damage caused by alcohol.
In 2010, there were 450,000 emergency treatments from marijuana. The rate of marijuana use has quadrupled in the last 20 years. It is the second most common substance, after alcohol, involved in D.U.I. incidents. M.A.D.D. states that drugged driving deaths will soon surpass drunk driving deaths by 2020, if current rates continue. When a Lie Travels explains why marijuana is not safer than alcohol.
3) It is Addictive. Since denial is a characteristic of addiction, marijuana addicts often don’t know they’re addicted. The older studies showed an addiction rate of 9% for adults and 17% for teen who smoked pot. They do not account for the high THC pot of today. Recent studies show that about 30% of current users in the U.S. have Cannabis Use Disorder.
