 First press conference for physicians, friends, physicians, friends and family for a better Vermont My name is Guy Page. I'm the advocacy director We have a lineup of speakers Which has changed a little bit due to the weather and We'll ask you to hold your questions until afterwards Okay First thing I wanted to point out is The latest news I believe I sent you a link of the Emerson College poll that finds that a majority of Respondents do not support marijuana legalization of any kind in a when decriminalization is an option and To us that's very significant news In Vermont where we are a decrim state the second thing I wanted to point out we have the Jonathan Colkins of the Rand Corporation gave a presentation to the Vermont Department of Health earlier this week and One of the One of the presentations that he he offered Had to do with what is going on in Washington, DC Washington DC, of course legalized personal use and One of the arguments made in house judiciary this year was we need to Legalize because too many Young people especially young people of color are being arrested and it's just it's just not fair What they have discovered in Washington, DC is that Arrests went up from 142 for Public intoxication of marijuana to 400 in one year after legalization Including many people of color so the idea that there's going to be fewer arrests in a Personal use Legalization environment has not been borne out in fact quite the opposite And the question could be asked why why has that happened? I think The best answer I've heard so far is frankly. It's just spillover more people are using it and They're coming out in the streets and State of public intoxication and more arrests are happening. They are also more arrests for For possession and sale as well so Now the third point that I was going to raise before we get to our speakers was on Some information that we are developing on drug recognition experts It is 90% done, but I'm afraid I'm sorry to tell you it's not completely ready yet My hope is that early Next week sometime I'll be able to send that to you and the gist of it is that DREs are a good program, but there there may be some some issues as far as How it will work in Vermont and David were to UVM researcher professor child psychiatrist With scheduled to come and deliver this paper He has been stopped by the storm unfortunately I'm going to read it and then I'll give anyone who wants copies and I can forward it to you as well David or to MD. I've been asked to say a little bit about what science actually knows on the link between marijuana use and opiate use I Know that it would be very helpful and convenient for some people to believe that cannabis use might actually help from a serious problem with opiates But unfortunately the weight of the science leads to the opposite conclusion That is not to deny the existence of the many people who use cannabis without developing opiate addictions Or to deny the existence of some people who have been able to substitute opiate use for cannabis However, when you are making policy You need to look at the net effects and the research indicates that overall more cannabis leads to more drug problems Not less and these problems include opiate addiction This evidence comes from three main sources first Research in animals that indicate that marijuana primes the brain to seek out more drugs Second a number of systematic research studies many of them quite new are showing that marijuana use at at time More than doubles the risk of opiate use disorder three to four years later Even after controlling for other factors It nearly triples the risk among people with pain Third there are troubling state statistics that are being reported more and more in 2016 for example Colorado witnessed the highest number of opiate overdose deaths in history This research parallels what we are already seeing in Vermont such as the recently disclosed Toxicology report showing high levels of both marijuana and opiates in the driver responsible for one of the most horrific crashes in the state's recent history Sure, it's possible to find studies that do not support these conclusions Just like you can find studies that don't support global warming But it is important to look at the overall conclusions made by people who are in the best position To evaluate the totality of the evidence and who are not subject to personal or financial conflicts of interest when it comes to marijuana Even if you accept the assertion that the science is not completely settled on this issue a Sensible response might be that this is a good reason not to plunge ahead with a political decision That would be nearly impossible When I work with adolescents in practice I try to help them resist the pressure when peers tell them to do something because everyone else is doing it, too I feel like our state government needs that support now There are a lot of hermoners who really do not believe the answer for our drug problem is more drugs To our elected officials I want to remind them that this message is out there now in this room If you go ahead with legalization Nobody is going to buy the excuse five or ten years from now that you were misled by a well-financed Lobbying effort telling you the same thing that cigarette companies told you decades ago You'll need to own this yourself However, I think I can speak for everyone standing here that years from now all of us would be much more content saying Thank you to our legislature than I told you so That was testimony of David were to dr. David, too. I will hand you all Copies of that and if you need it in electronic version, I can send it to you as well our next speaker is Dr. John Hughes who is an Eminent researcher researcher and expert on drug addiction at the University of Vermont Thank you. I'm a professor here at UVM and Do clinical work in helping people stop? Drug problems and do research in that area as well We've done studies on marijuana. For example UVM was one of the first Places to describe and document that there is a marijuana withdrawal syndrome and that withdrawal syndrome Can lead people to not be able to function normally So what I want to talk about mostly today is the harms and the reason I want to do that is whenever we have a Possibly we want to talk about the risk and the benefits and we'll talk about someone talk about the harms first and the benefits later But the major thing I want to do is echo what what Dave said Dave said you can have studies this way and have studies that way but what are the experts do what are the people that have no conflicts and Vermont we have seven medical societies who have been against legalization Now one of the things has the legislature proposed that seven medical societies have said no to doing that So I and I think that comes from several places. Okay first is that when we legalize the substance we make it less have less of a Of a stigma and and so when we do that we're going to increase use Now 10% of people who begin marijuana will become addicted to it at some point in their life So if we have a thousand kids Who use marijuana who wouldn't normally have used marijuana? That means there's going to be a hundred extra people coming to meet for treatment And right now at UVM we have a waiting list of a hundred to two hundred people trying to get into treatment for opioids And now we're going to add another hundred or more for this problem as well Just doesn't make any sense the other thing is That when we increase availability, we're going to increase the problems even if it's well-intentioned So Vermont is a wonderful example that we have a terrible opioid problem And where did that opioid problem arise it arose in part because about 10 or 15 years ago We were encouraged that we were not treating pain adequately And we needed to do a better job of that and the way to do a better job of that was to more freely use opioids Now that was a well-intentioned effect But it had a side effect and that side effect was whenever you increase the availability drug you're going to have problems And that's because when you increase marijuana use you're just going to have more people walking around intoxicated And when you have more intoxicated people you're going to have more car problem car accidents You're going to have more people kid shooting fewer kids that are able to complete high school or college It's just it's just gonna it's just an inevitable Inevitability that that's going to happen The other thing is That we do know American Psychiatric Association and several other organizations have Shown that increasing marijuana use we're not exactly sure that it causes mental illness But we certainly know two things one is it makes it worse There's no doubt about that especially Sarkozy's and secondly it makes it much harder to treat if you have a if you currently use marijuana My ability to get you better is really much much less than it would be otherwise now I think the other thing that we forget about this issue is that Many people in the past have used marijuana when they were younger and The marijuana they were using back younger is what I call over-the-counter marijuana What we have now is we have prescription strength marijuana that's four to five times more Jimmy's stronger and so when you have that Increased dosage Just like with any drug you're going to have increased problems And so when we think about oh, we're just going to have people at night using this low-grade marijuana That's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is with that higher grade. You're going to have much more addiction Now, how about the benefits? What are the benefits for legalization? So we have decriminalization and to me we got it right with decriminalization What I want to know is what's going wrong now with decriminalization? It's not like we're resting kids and throwing them in jail. That doesn't happen anymore. So what's the benefit? Well? People use the term recreational use and I have to say I hate that term because it suggests that there's no harm, you know Bicycle recreational use suggests that you know, it's just like bicycling, you know, maybe a few people have accidents But it's no big deal. That's not the same thing with drug use You cannot talk about recreational drug use without Acknowledging the side effects that you're going to have So let me finish by going back to one of the things I said at the beginning is that you have expert groups Where there's the American Medical Association? Vermont Medical Society's American Psychiatric Association all of whom agree on one thing and that is if you increase Availability of marijuana use you're going to increase problems. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Hughes and now We have someone whose whose life Darrell Rogers whose life has been Tragically impacted by marijuana abuse and I will let Darrell give a Tell his own story. Do you know what it's like? Very one of your children I do Do you know what it's like? To walk into the funeral home walk up to the casket lay your hand on your child's chest Feel his feel his cold Step lifeless body. I do. Do you know what it's like? To walk into the front door of your home and look at your wife and tell her That her son is dead I do. I buried my mother and my father and I loved them dearly and that hurt Over the years. I've attended the funerals of many family and friends But nothing could prepare me For the intense pain That I would go through the day that I learned that my oldest son Chase had died in a wreck And it's a pain that never goes away I've talked to other parents who've lost children. It doesn't matter if it's been 20 years 30 years The pain is still there It's a pain that never goes away What was it? That cost my son Chase his life It was his decision to use marijuana. There's no doubt about that in my mind Not a doubt at all. I saw What marijuana did to Chase at one time he was a vibrant Active young man with ambitions, but I saw marijuana steal his ambitions He became he went to a place where All he wanted to do was just the minimum to get by every day just so he can lay around and smoke his weed Just as long as he could do that. That was all he needed That's where he went to I had the opportunity To get to hang out with some of his friends spend some time with some of his friends and get to know them You know what they all have one thing in common. That was marijuana and you know what else they had in common They couldn't hold down a job For any length of time Not only could they not hold down a job some of them wouldn't be able to tell you where they would be spending the night tonight They would not be able to tell you where their next meal is coming from Some of them in and out of jail in and out of rehab. I Had the chance to get to know them really really well I took one of them into my own home and I took money out of my pocket to send him to California to Los Angeles to pay for him to go into treatment. He spent one week there One week is all he lasted. I also saw a marijuana effect. I saw it impair my son Chase's judgment In fact, one of the last things that he did was go to the park with some friends and smoke a bowl of weed And after that Guess what he did? He took his car keys and put them in the hands of an 18-year-old young woman Who had never even had a driver's license and he knew that she didn't have a driver's license Another young man got in the back chase got in the front passenger seat of his own car And he allowed this young woman to drive them into rush hour traffic on a busy afternoon She drove what used to be my dad's car off the road at 70 miles per hour and they hit a tree Chase was killed instantly It took firefighters almost an hour to get the three occupants out of the car Seven months after that wreck and only a few weeks prior to what would have been her first court appearance that young woman poured gasoline all over the floor of her apartment and ignited it She died the next day in the hospital. She took her own life I want you to know what marijuana does to people because I've seen it You know, you're going to hear the testimony of some brilliant people here today the experts You're going to hear them give you the science give you the data all of that. You know what? It's great, but I personally I don't need any of that because I saw with my own two eyes What it did to my son? I've seen what it's done to his friends. I've been here to Vermont before I Came in mid-October. I went to about I was here for seven days and I made 15 different appearances. I Went to your high schools some of your high schools here And I spoke and I talked to some of the young people there You know why I'm not getting paid to do this. I Came here because I care about those kids And I care about you. I don't want to see you end up in the same position. I'm in I Don't want you to be the one next because it could be your child It or it could be your grandchild who's killed by a stone driver It could be your child or your grandchild who's next they could be the ones who are introduced by some of their teenage friends to marijuana and as a result of that end up trying harder drugs and then Overdosing you don't know how many parents I've talked to you have that same story. I Don't want you to be the one To experience those things that I've experienced Where you walk up to that casket? With your dead child's body inside think carefully Think carefully about the choices that you're about to make Because it will have a lasting impact on your children and your grandchildren on the youth of Vermont on the future of this country Thank you. The person who organized that tour for Darrell was a Vermonda named Bob Orlick who's right here and He will be reading to us a letter from me a position at ground zero in Pueblo, Colorado Name is Karen Randall and we hope at some point that maybe she can come up to Vermont But in the meantime Bob's going to read a letter from her Karen would have liked to been here, but she couldn't be and The purpose of her being here would they give a window so and was her idea that looking through that window You could see what Vermont would be like if They go down this road Karen Karen worked works in the third largest emergency practice in the state of Colorado and She was 18 years at Henry Ford as a teaching physician She did a residency in PD pediatrics and in emergency room Medicine she has a unique perspective She writes this and it'll be in the first person. Thank you for allowing me to speak via written word I'm sorry. I could not be there in person. I'm both trained in pediatrics and emergency medicine I've been the boots on the ground in the emergency department of Colorado since 2013 and have seen rapid and significant changes in my community We know from both the tobacco industry and the alcohol industry the true cost to society are almost impossible to calculate We know that DUI and automobile accidents have increased in the last four years We know that youth usage despite a decline in the US is up in states that have legalized The use of marijuana is being normalized and our youth children are following suit and using more healthy kids survey in 2015 showed that 64 percent of kids in high schools in Pueblo County, Colorado Say that getting marijuana would be easy or very easy and without a doubt We know that repeated use while a youth actually anyone less than 25 years of age may lead to long-term changes in the brain These changes affect the judgment center among others make making decisions about risky behavior more difficult We know that kids who use are at a markedly increased risk of addiction We know that marijuana products are being found in junior and high schools with increasing frequency The edible products of the vaping products make it possible for the kids to use right there in the classroom Ask a teacher get the opinion of a Colorado teacher about how legalized marijuana has changed the classroom We know that local businesses have had increasingly difficult time finding employees to work Who can pass a drug urine test our business here has had to screen one business had to screen over 70 applicants to fill three positions We know that utilization of emergency services in the hospital have increased from everything from acute psychosis to overdoses to cannabinoid hyperemesis You may sit back and think that since you don't use marijuana it won't affect you But it will we're all paying the increased hospital costs the Medicare Costs via increased premiums increased usage of Medicare or Medicaid We are paying more here for car insurance We're paying for loss of productive time for individuals that choose to smoke marijuana all day every day And if you are one of your children happens to get addicted? Yes addicted You and your family will pay a lot of money for rehab and drug treatment programs hoping that they work So many of my friends and co-workers have spent their entire retirement accounts to pay for these services Leaving them in an age where they can't retire You may have to wait longer an emergency department for your emergency care because I will be taking care of the acutely Psychotic patient who is in danger to himself and others Your children will have to be so very digital Diligent because marijuana is everywhere and use of marijuana as being normalized by so many people There is no question that they will be exposed to marijuana products and be exposed at a much younger age Briefly look at the environment. We were promised that legal marijuana would cut down on the number of illegal grows We know that this is not true. You don't need to take my word for it You can Google the the Department of Natural Resources that illegal grows. They are all over California and Colorado These grows also bring you illegal pesticides chemicals Considered too toxic to be legal in the US from other countries. They're being used to grow their plants They run off of these plants Leading to toxic chemicals in the water tables and local vegetation, which will ultimately make it into the food chain and into your body Legalized marijuana has been here since 2014. I've been working here from before 2014 to the present time. We were promised so many things to date our schools have not improved our roads are not safer Our jails are crowded to overfilling not to mention falling apart in Colorado is posting a huge budget deficit this year Look at the highway statistics look at the Department of Natural Resources and illegal grows Look at the new and emerging medical complications from the use of high-dose THC products After all of this ask yourself why your politicians are so eager to pass this legislation Ask them for full disclosure. Do they own participate have partnership in the marijuana industry? Why are they doing this? Are they receiving money from the industry? Are there family members involved? I think that you may be surprised by the results that you would hear. Yes, a few people will make a lot of money From the marijuana industry, but the likelihood is that you will pay for that industry Even if you don't use marijuana products, is that what you want? I extend my personal public invitation for the governor or lieutenant governor to come and spend a day with me and see the End point of Colorado's legislation with regards to marijuana. I would like them to come to work with me They can come to the innumerable homeless sites throughout our state They can go to our local Walmart and speak to people living in broken down campers in the parking lot They then can come to my house, and I will show them in a legal grow house that is less than a thousand feet from my home To the legislative branch considering legalization of any sort be diligent be informed look beyond what seems like You know great revenue understand that all ramifications of legalization Listen to what the teachers the doctors the police department the fire departments and parents of Colorado Experiencing have you wondered why so many of these people are speaking out? Really get to know what you're getting into Decide if that's what you want for your children in your neighborhood be informed and thank you for your time Karen Randall, and I have copies For anybody We have a Vermont drug expert drug abuse prevention expert Ginny Burley with us and She will now Her area of expertise So I have a little disclaimer here I'm a last-minute sub in this role because I live in East Montpilier and could get here and Mariah Sanderson who was going to fill this role lives in Burlington and could not So Catherine this just went closed So I'm going to read a borrowed speech on a borrowed computer because I believe that the Role of substance prevention is critical in this conversation We in the prevention community and I work at a prevention community here in Montpilier are Committed to preventing increase in youth use of all substances So I'll skip the part about her kids and get right to That prevention community is concerned about the direction our state and our country are taking with marijuana policy I believe that if we continue to ignore science and rush to legalize marijuana It will be one of the biggest public health mistakes of at least my lifetime Research very clearly shows that legalization increases access to the substance and that increased access Equals increased use Our nation's legal drugs are more accessible available and are viewed as safer because they are legal So they are used at dramatically higher rates than our illegal ones If like me you've read the Vermont health impact assessment of marijuana legalization You know that legalization does not bring good news for our state's long-term outcomes It predicts that legalization will bring increases in youth use traffic crashes, ER visits, mental health issues, addiction Treatment needs and worsening academic performance Before Vermont moves any further toward policies that increase access to marijuana We have to address the health impacts Of increased use and increased addiction from this policy change Smart marijuana policies should recognize that marijuana use has ill effects on health and should be discouraged The rate of marijuana use in Vermont is some of the highest in the nation And we need to do work as a state first to better inform citizens about the risks associated with use today Vermont does not need more marijuana use. We need healthy brains Vermont does not need more marijuana use. We need an educated sober workforce Vermont does not need more marijuana use. We need safe sober drivers Vermont does not need more drug use. We need policy that supports healthy kids and healthy communities Vermont does not need access to more drugs. We need policymakers to make an investment in effective substance abuse prevention strategies Just a little personal aside at that point I'm funded for two hours a week to work on marijuana issues and nine hours a week to work on tobacco And that's all I got so support for Funding for prevention is not abundant I have often heard proponents of legalization say that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol or other drugs And in a few ways that is true a person cannot consume a lethal dose of marijuana When someone is using or high on marijuana the incidence of people taking physical risks is much rarer than with alcohol But our only measure of harm cannot be death The rates among people who use Who meet the diagnostic criteria for dependence on marijuana are higher than alcohol 21 for marijuana 13 for alcohol Data shows that marijuana dependence or addiction has been continuing to increase And the frequency that regular users are using is increasing. They are using more often Basically our data from the national survey on drug use and health is showing that today's marijuana Tends to generate more problems with addiction than alcohol It will take a good five to ten years to know what the consequences will be of legalization in the states that rushed to legalize There's been increasing research documenting the harmfulness of the potent marijuana available today But right now there is still a lot of conflicting evidence We need to have time as more studies are done And science will help us determine what is the best path forward to improve current policy So though I hear we're not supposed to follow science anymore according to Congress What would we want to increase the marijuana use issues vermont? Why would we want to increase the marijuana use issues vermont already has? What kind of benefit could vermont possibly get from legalization that would justify this kind of public health risk? I struggle with how hard it is to raise my kids to make good choices in the face of so much media That glorifies and normalizes drug and alcohol use We need our policymakers and communities to make decisions based on the current and relevant research from reputable sources And to support building communities that make the healthy choice the easy choice for our residents and visitors Specifically, I ask our legislators Again to slow down when it comes to creating sensible drug policy. This should not be erased to see who can get there first Regardless of how legislators think they can keep legal marijuana as a home grow product The reality is that all legal drugs in the u.s. Are eventually produced by commercial industries That are motivated to increase consumption in order to increase profits Lobbyists and special interest groups have been spending time and money across the u.s And in vermont to downplay the challenges of legalization because of their ties to the business industries That will profit from a new mood-altering drug. They can market to vermonters We are currently in the midst of an opiate epidemic that is in part because 20 years ago We allowed easy access to highly addictive drugs. We did not fully understand And the companies who could profit off those drugs helped shape the narrative and told us they were safe We cannot allow ourselves to do the same thing again I urge legislators to use more caution this time to wait for more information from the reports from the governor's commission on marijuana To wait for more information from the states that rushed into this. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again Vermont does not need policies that increase access to more drugs We need investment from our leaders in policies that preserve promote and improve public health And thank you mariah sanderson Thank you, jeannie. Sure I do need to make one correction the source of this Of the dc increase in arrests was not the rain corporation. It was the national survey of drug use and health okay Now our next speaker is a new jersey Attorney legal expert and what I find most he has a very long and impressive resume but what I find most impressive is that he is a a former faculty member on drug crime at john j criminal college the the harvard of of criminal law is is john j and He taught there. So Dave Evans uh, thanks guy I live right across the lake in new york state up near platzberg and um, i'm very concerned about Mara marijuana being legalized in vermont coming over to new york Uh, I like vermont a lot Uh, the first time I was in vermont was visiting my brother who went to middlebury And I got introduced to vermont maple syrup and maple sugar candy And I would suggest to you that you look at the state rules About protecting maple syrup and maple sugar From pesticides and contamination and making sure that it's pure And then look have you done anything even similar to that to protect people from impurities in marijuana? You have not in this in this bill Um, I headed up the by the way My daughter graduated as a master's degree from middlebury. So I chose that my daughter educated here because I thought it was a state of very sensible people um, I also used to run the drunk driving program in new jersey and What's going to happen if you legalize is first of all adult marijuana use is going to go up in the states that have legalized it Adult use has gone up 40 percent So that means that all of the mayhem connected with people being intoxicated also goes up in the state of washington Drug driving fatalities due to marijuana doubled in colorado It's now one out of every five fatalities there highway fatalities are connected with marijuana So people are going to die In vermin more people are going to die so that some people can get high If that's a fair exchange for you then vote for this bill The uh big problem with marijuana today Is that it is not the marijuana that I smoked when I was in college When I smoked back in the 60s. It was maybe two or three percent thc They now have marijuana products That are 99 thc. You have a handout here about that under this bill This will become legal in vermont. You'll be able to produce Concentrates that are 99 thc as a matter of fact the bill even talks about that It says that if you're going to make concentrates You can't use butane. Why not because it's a carcinogen But you can use co2 or other ways of making the concentrates getting the oils and the concentrates out of the marijuana Something else I should scare you a study was done of teenagers One in five of the students admitted to driving car within an hour of using marijuana So our kid's going to have more access to marijuana if this bill gets passed Absolutely. This bill is reckless When it comes to protecting children from diversion of marijuana It places the responsibility for preventing diversion of a marijuana To children to people who are going to be using the marijuana You'll be allowed to grow marijuana in your home Children live in your home And the only thing the bill says about that is that you have to take some measures to make sure that people under the age Of 21 don't have access to this Now how much marijuana is going to be able to be grown in people's homes? Well, you can have up to an ounce And then you can have up to two mature marijuana plants A marijuana plant Can be six feet tall and four feet wide in my handout. We've got Examples of it there a typical marijuana plant One plant can generate one to five pounds of marijuana a year, especially when it's well cared for So one to five pounds of marijuana a year, depending on whether it's average marijuana or simsonella An ounce can generate between 60 and 120 joints So you do the math and five pounds 16 ounces five pounds A marijuana plant that you'll be able to grow in your home Will be able to generate 9 000 joints and then since you have two of them We're now getting up to 19 000 joints So that's about 50 joints a day if you're going to smoke marijuana All this marijuana is going to be laying around a matter of fact the bill provides that you can store marijuana And it's not counted uh as as an ounce And that means that all of that is going to be uh diverted to kids So people in your neighborhood your next door neighbor is going to be able to produce Every time your kid goes over to that person's house They're going to potentially have access to thousands of joints marijuana that's going to be in that home legally So how are you going to stop kids from getting access to it? Uh, that means you can never leave the kids alone. You can never go shopping. You always have to check now Uh kids are pretty you know aggressive about these types of things. I used to steal my parents alcohol I would water it down so they wouldn't know kids are going to get access to this There's nothing in the bill that says anything about having to lock it up How you're going to lock it up how it's going to be certified and how is anybody going to find out that you're not properly caring for the marijuana Nobody is monitoring this it's going to be up to pod users pod heads To monitor the diversion of marijuana also the penalties for kids under the age of 21 are very minimal under this and so Drug pushers marijuana pushers are going to start using kids Just like they do in the big cities with heroin using kids to sell and pick up and deliver the marijuana Because they know if the kid gets caught there's going to be very little penalty on that child I appreciated the doctor from colorado Inviting the governor lieutenant governor to come to colorado. There's two colorado tours There's the official government tour And if you get that tour you go there and you think everything is hunky dory Then there is the real tour and we have given legislators Both tours. I know in new jersey they got the government tour They came back and said we got a legalized pot in massachusetts A bunch of the senators came out and got our tour and they came out and said there's no way we want to do this Now unfortunately it got through on a ballot initiative, but they got to see what's really going on there Pot infuses the culture there I it becomes a very dominant thing and The school officials have all kinds of problems now the lunchrooms smell of marijuana because kids are bringing it in the form of edibles School performance has gone down school disciplinary problems have gone up Read the uh, there's a great editorial by the colorado springs gazette It talks about all of the school related problems that they're having With marijuana disciplinary issues have gone up If that's what you want in the state fine Uh, let's talk about marijuana growing. How do you grow marijuana? Well, you want to keep bugs out so you use pesticides you use all kinds of chemicals Study after study after study after study Smithsonian scientific american all over the place. There was just a study in california california has had Medical this is medical marijuana for 10 years And they did testing of medical marijuana products in california in august 80 percent of them Now this is a state that's had in You know legalization really marijuana for that period of time 80 percent We're full of pesticides heavy metals and fungus So when people grow it in their homes, are they going to be monitoring their use of pesticides heavy metals grow products Fungus is anybody even going to know what a marijuana fungus looks like to take it off before somebody inhales it? so 80 percent in california Under regulation says loose is the ones that that are going to be in this bill This bill has absolutely no regulation at all on the production of marijuana are going to be loaded with chemicals And that's the state that had over 10 years of experience with this Uh, this is an extremely irresponsible bill because you provide no guidance to people no standards nothing You do very little to keep it out of the hands of children Um How much time do we want to get for questions? I can go on for a couple more minutes We have one more statement Okay, well, let me just end with this then Years ago the national organization for the form of marijuana laws was trying to promote marijuana And they came up with the idea of medical marijuana. We have a videotape of them laughing about this Uh, you know, they didn't think anybody would buy it, but people did So what happened is that medical marijuana allowed the marijuana industry to gain influence and to gain money They took the money and then put it in to try to get marijuana legalized Uh, we are with marijuana right now where we were with tobacco in the 1950s The public is just starting to be aware. There's a huge problem here But the lobbying and the influence of the tobacco industry is so strong It hasn't offset the science yet. So those of you who are legislators are considering this think about Are you being conned by the marijuana industry? They do focus groups. They know what will appeal to you They use racial justice issues. They use other things like this that appeal to your emotions rather than your head Uh, I would urge you to use your head because you're placing a bomb In the health of vermont that's going to explode. These people are not going to stop at this Okay, they're going to move on to commercialization, which they've done in every other single state You're going to be seeing advertisements aimed at young people With santa claus. My favorite is one from colorado that has a scantily clad girl And they're advertising a back to school special from marijuana That's coming to vermont if you open the store Commercialization will come in because they'll come in with all kinds of arguments About why it should be sold and this and that and how much money you're going to make and how it's fair to Racial minorities and they'll come up with all the arguments So when you see anybody from the marijuana industry representing marijuana think tobacco Think big tobacco industry and how they con the american public. I can remember when I was a kid Seeing cigarette advertisements So many doctors smoke camels. They're susan through the throat. They advertise tobacco for women to lose weight This is what's being thrown at you now. They've studied you. They know what makes you tick And you're getting conned. So don't be conned put the health of the children First don't be stupid thanks Ed Baker will read an excerpt from a letter by liby styte who is a Psychiatric addiction expert from colorado And then we'll have questions Hello, and thank you I want to say before I read this excerpt that I agree with everything Dr. Stike has to say and it's interesting because as part of this letter there's an ad from colorado And it's santa claus And it's at a dispensary a medical and you know non-medical dispensary of marijuana Cut rate deals And I can remember when I was a kid santa claus had a carton of lucky strike cigarettes in his in his bag. Um, so Your last speaker's points are well taken So this is just a brief quote because dr. Stike echoes a lot of what every other speaker has said today Dr. Stike is a board certified Addiction psychiatrist. She's been in the field for a number of decades. She's the executive director of the circle program in Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo Seems to be the epicenter of marijuana growth and use in colorado The healthy kids survey in 2015 indicated that 30.1 Percent of teenagers in Pueblo reported past month use of marijuana The highest in colorado We have the highest incidence of suicide in teenagers And the highest rate of heroin overdoses in colorado the correlation between These and the use of marijuana is very strong She concludes With we must dispel the myths that marijuana is safe And that it is safer than alcohol This is a burgeoning public health nightmare That combines the worst of alcohol And the worst of nicotine I hate to think that we will continue down this road Of allowing the marijuana industry To put out false data About how great marijuana is and how much money your estate will make While we lose a generation of children to addiction And the threat of serious mental health problems She says good luck In your decision And I hope I helped some In terms of educating you about our real life experience With what our governor has termed a social experiment Well, now is a good time If you have any questions for the experts who are here Be glad to Dave, Dr. Hughes Any other experts who are here please feel free I wonder what would your strategies be for dealing with marijuana now We know it's out there, we know people are using marijuana What is going to What should be done even if it's not legalized? Well, I think we should do what we did back in when What happened during the parents' movement The high point of drug use in the United States was in the late 1970s And we Formed the parents' movement We were able to reduce drug use overall by about 50 percent It's a total lie that the war on drugs didn't work It's absolutely not true Under the Bush administration marijuana use among young people went down 25 percent So as young people perceive that marijuana is dangerous use goes down If you pass this law the kids are not going to perceive that marijuana is dangerous They're going to think it's okay because my next door neighbor is growing it or dad is growing it So education on what is really going on with marijuana today The education is not caught up with the science anybody that looks at the recent science about marijuana the medical science and mental health science All all of the organizations that can weigh in and the scientifically weigh in said it's dangerous It affects mental health and it causes addiction to other drugs The american psychiatric association national academy of sciences the world health organization The u.s. Surgeon general and the nationalist university all have weighed in on that Okay, so the science is there, but it's not into everybody's head yet So uh people perceive of marijuana as being this kind of benign substance like it was during the woodstock week period So increase education our leaders need to speak out. You need to say this is not good This is what marijuana is really all about our legislative leaders Your governor needs to have courage to come out and say that to be a leader Like it was done in previous generations where presidents and governors made statements like that And to also confront the marijuana industry confront their lobbying When we go into schools and talk about marijuana kids say, but it's medicine. It's good for you Okay, why do they think it's medicine? Do they think it's medicine in your state because you have medical marijuana So how do you argue against that? So you have to Uh do education have leaders speak up and have people that have the courage To confront the marijuana industry Just like it ultimately happened with tobacco Okay, we confront the tobacco when people started dying from it Both my parents died from tobacco related illnesses and that got everybody's attention And you're gonna start seeing in the next five six seven eight ten years All of the damage of that marijuana is starting to come out Spontaneous abortions child birth defects all this stuff is now going to start coming up because now it's really being intensively studied There's also a myth that you can't study marijuana bologna the national academy of sciences came out with a report They looked at 10 000 studies. There's 10 000 studies about the dangers of marijuana. The science is clear on Uh, you know peer reviewed scientifically valid studies. So that's what I would do if I was in vermine I'd ask my governor to stand up and say this is wrong and we're not going to allow this to damage our children I want to I want to add one one point That um, I think it's really important as as adults That we uh, be very careful about the messaging that we're offering our adolescents especially When when we use the term recreational marijuana, I think that's a very misleading term It equates marijuana smoking a dangerous drug with recreation What is the message that a teenager is going to take away from that kind of statement? Smoking marijuana is good Smoking marijuana is somehow, you know, not harmful. It's recreation I think we need to portray it as the self administration of a dangerous Harmful drug. It is not recreation. I'm awful at banning that word. Thank you Yeah, I'll bring another point Let's say, you know that your next door neighbor is growing marijuana and using marijuana Are you going to be comfortable having your kid go over their house with a stone parent? I wouldn't be and I my kids ever went into a party. I called the parents up and I said, okay What's going on? I don't want alcohol at that party. Otherwise my kid isn't going to go Uh, you're going to feel comfortable and safe and secure with a marijuana using parent It's got thousands and joints in their house driving your kid to the soccer game I don't think so. I'm not going to want to do it. I don't want my surgeon under the influence of marijuana I'm a lawyer. I wouldn't want my lawyer being under the influence of marijuana when he goes into court Adult use is going to go up. You pass this bill adult use is going up All of those dangers are going to increase and I think if you do this 10 years from now people are going to look at you and say What the hell were you thinking? How could you have been so stupid to have fallen for this con job from a marijuana industry that doesn't care about people but only cares about profits They're advertising to children Okay, we don't let the tobacco companies do that But they're allowed to do it in colorado There's a cannabis tourism map that is given out at the zoo When kids go to the zoo in colorado, they have a uh, you know brochures out there for tourist things in colorado And there's a cannabis tourism map that any kid can pick up You think that's okay? I don't think so It's being promoted uh as being safe and and a recreation We said students could you react to a statement that the uh, and the purgatory culture Most promoters understand that marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol And they're ready to see the state begin treating it that way Well, first of all, that's a pretty low bar Considering how many traffic accidents we have with alcohol how many people I see in treatment So, you know, I don't I don't think that's a fair comparison. Um, there also Um, yeah, it's all stuff We've heard a lot about the bill And uh, uh, there's a bill that is expected to be voted upon in the first few days of the session And then there's the bill that's kind of played down the road Oregon colorado style tax regularity system Do you have a preference between those two? Well, clear I prefer the former than the latter because the second has So here's we get into commercialization and once we get into commercialization We get into big tobacco being part of it. You know come that sort of thing I think the major issue here is That normalizing use use okay, so bra and flint at UVM did a wonderful study What he did is he went into high schools And asked kids how many of your friends smoked tobacco? And they all overestimated it They all said 30 they all said 40 or 50 percent. He gave them data that it was 20 percent With that one interaction he decreased smoking in high school Okay, so kids do things that they see other people normalizing okay And that's my real concern is sending the wrong message And that's why I think we've got it right with decriminalization because we're not throwing kids in jail We're still telling kids this is not good to do So that's why I like decriminalization If I can comment on that alcohol, uh being more dangerous, uh, let's just look at that data a little bit We've got maybe two-thirds of the country uses alcohol on a regular fairly regular basis We have maybe 14 to 20 million people one tenth Of that amount using marijuana So the perception is that it's less dangerous Because there's so few people using it compared to alcohol. We see more alcohol because more people use it If you commercialize it Okay, you're going to start seeing the use of marijuana climb And the public perception that it is equally dangerous in the state of washington right now alcohol Fatalities drunk driving fatalities are the same With the drugs That it increased by 50 percent in the state of washington So again, you're dealing with a public perception that is 30 40 years old That doesn't match up to the current science Uh and the current science needs to get out to people which is some of what we're trying to do today Knowing what I know now about marijuana. I wouldn't have touched it in college I wouldn't touch it today because it's not even near the potency that I had it in college. Okay And if you ask people by the way, um Do you think that 99 pure thc hashish is less dangerous than alcohol? I don't I think you get a different response to that Okay, it's like the equivalent of a 3-2 beer when I smoked in college to pure grain alcohol Okay, that's the difference between the marijuana then and the marijuana today I just like to add one one one thing about this tradition Said about whether or not alcohol is more dangerous or marijuana is more dangerous I I agree that the bar is really low when you're comparing danger um If you look at the three leading causes of death on the planet earth Two of them are legal drugs alcohol and tobacco So if marijuana is less dangerous than one of the leading Causes of print preventable death on earth does that make it safe? There's one thing that I forgot to mention in my talk My son chase Had told my wife mom Marijuana is not that bad. How could it be that bad after all? They've already legalized it in a couple of states and before you know it It'll be legal across the entire united states. So obviously legalization of marijuana had already sent a message to my son That it couldn't be that bad Well, thank you all very much for coming If you need any information handouts links or whatever come to me You're glad to hand it to you And again, thank you