 Welcome to this evening's discussion, Marijuana and Youth, a community conversation. Tonight's program is hosted, co-hosted by 21 Reasons and the City of Portland Public Health Division. Thank you all for coming this evening. My name is Joe Morrissey I'm the Program Manager for 21 Reasons. So as you know, Colorado and Washington voters approved their legalization measures in November 2012 and Colorado stores began selling marijuana legally on January 1st, 2014. The State of Washington is expected to start this June. Alaskans are expected to vote on a measure this August. Closer to home, the main legislature narrowly defeated a legalization measure this spring of 2013 and voted not to take one up in this current session. But however, Representative Diane Russell and at least two national pro-marijuana groups have pledged to bring another bill back if not in 2015, then again in 2016. And even closer to home here in Portland, voters in Maine's largest city, Portland, passed an ordinance making the possession of up to two and a half ounces in certain circumstances legal. And of course there is Maine's medical marijuana program. And I'm Shonda Sinclair from City of Portland Public Health Division, Substance Abuse Prevention Program. And amid this debate is all of us, parents, youth, caregivers. Youth advocates and concerned citizens. And how do we as a community come together to make sure that marijuana doesn't become more readily available, promoted to, and used by more youth in the future? Tonight, we hope to clear the air about how marijuana works and how it affects the body and brain, particularly those of the youth's developing brain. And we're also gonna take a look at how marijuana is being marketed in other states as well as on the internet. And discuss how we can avoid inadvertently sending our youth information, misinformation about the glamorization of marijuana. We have assembled a panel, from hearing from the community, we've assembled a panel of people on all sides so that we can have a good open discussion about this issue. Their views are their own and not necessarily those of 21 reasons in the City of Portland Public Health. The information shared here tonight is intended to deepen the discussion on marijuana. So before we hand the server to tonight's moderator, Shannon Moss, a little bit of housekeeping for you all, this evening's program is being recorded by CTN-5 and will be available for read broadcast on their station. Please help us produce a quality tape by please turning off all sounds on your cell phones or smartphones or dumb phones or iPads or whatever you have. The Portland Public Library, the space does have free wifi if you haven't already tapped into it and you need to. Emergency exits are located both to your left which goes out into the library and as well as behind you and to your right, those bottom out out into the street should you find yourself needing them. Bathrooms are located outside this door and to the right. Smoking is prohibited in the Ryan's Auditorium or any other space in the public library at all times. We will be taking questions from the audience in two formats, them as you've filed in, hopefully you've seen on your seat a little index card and a pen. So we'll be going around and collecting any questions that you may have or we would also love to hear from you and we have a microphone set up here up front. We ask that if there's an approach to the microphone you take it on the outside of the pillars here. Again, help us produce that quality tape for reproduction. And now, oh, and then one more thing. On your seats also you've found some feedback forms around this evening's program. We would love to hear from you around how you think the program went, what other programming that you may wanna have or any feedback that you think would be valuable to us and or our panelists here this evening. So, and before I turn this over to tonight's moderator, Shannon Moss. Shannon Moss has just started a new fascinating chapter in her life. You can check out split screen on ShannonMoss.com where she covers stories from the Donnie's Magazine. And you can also hear her on Monday through Friday from nine to 11 on WLOB talk show. And again, Shannon Moss. Thank you and welcome everyone. It's great to see you here this evening. Thanks for coming out. Thank you. Never met a mic I didn't like. Well, so the boy that was convenient. I looked right at you when I said that too, right? Didn't, although I do like your mic. All right, well hi and welcome everyone. I'll be your moderator for this evening. And tonight's program is gonna go a bit like this. In just a moment we're gonna give each of our panelists an opportunity to introduce themselves. They have been provided or I've been provided with some questions to ask each panelist or have questions directed towards individual panelists as well. Now we get, as Joe was saying, this is not a debate. It's not meant to be whether marijuana should be legal or not. That's not why we're here tonight. That's not the conversation. Tonight is about discussing how we shape our community so that marijuana is not marketed or made easily available to our youth. And now I'd like for each of the panelists to tell us not only their name, but their affiliation and briefly tell us your position on marijuana. We have a packed program, a lot of opportunity for a lot of questions, as well as from the audience as well if you have some. So we wanna get started and if you could keep your introductions about a minute or so, that would be great. And we'll start off with you. Portland Police Chief Mike Soschuck. Thanks Shannon. I appreciate that. Mike Soschuck, the Chief of the Portland Police Department. I've been in Portland for about 17 years. Been the Chief for about three years. We've certainly been involved in the conversation around marijuana primarily through the city ordinance that was passed recently. And I look forward to answer any questions and to take part in this healthy debate here tonight. Truly look forward to it. We start talking about youth, which is why we're here. I think we can speak in with one voice around our concerns, around availability to youth. And that's certainly why I'm here tonight. So thanks. Thank you, Mike. Mike Friesinger. Hi everybody, my name is Mike Friesinger and I am the Program Director for the Maine Youth Court, which is a youth-run diversion program based in restorative justice philosophy. And I'm here tonight because I would love to be a part of the conversation of helping the system move away from a punitive response to substance abuse towards one that addresses treatment in supporting youth and recovery. Thank you, Mike. Oh, sorry, Grania Dunn. My name is Grania Dunn and I'm an organizer with the Maine Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and I'm focused specifically on criminal justice reform. The ACLU, both the national ACLU and the Maine Affiliate are supportive of legalization, both at the national level, state level, and we worked on the Portland ordinance as well. Our particular interest in this is we see marijuana legalization as a key part in a key piece in reducing our over-reliance and use of the criminal justice system. We believe that drug use is really a public health issue and that we need to stop using our criminal justice system to try and address what really is a public health issue. Grania, if it's easier, you can pull your mic just a little bit closer for you. No, that's okay, just so you don't have to lean all the way over. David Boyer. Hi, my name is Dave Boyer. I'm the Maine... Oh, you guys haven't done that. I'm the Maine Political Director for the Marijuana Policy Project. We were one of the primary backers in last year's campaign to make marijuana legal for adults 21 and over. My organization is the largest nonprofit in the country and the world, dedicated to changing our failed policies of marijuana prohibition and regulating marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. Gok Anir. Oh, my name is Gok Anir. I'm with Sam Maine, which is Smart Approaches to Marijuana. We are the main affiliate of Project Sam, co-founded by Kevin Sebed and Patrick Kennedy. We're an organization that is all about bringing the science of today's marijuana into conversation around marijuana policy. We do not support legalization, however, we also do support taking a serious look at current policies we have and addressing where we can issues of stigma and those kinds of things follow people. So we're sort of a third way approach. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, let's get right to the questions because again, we're limited on time. We wanna get through as much as we can. With legalization happening in Washington as well as Colorado, on the ballot and many other states, what do you think has been the effects of this movement on the youth perception of risk for smoking and also their use rates? And Chief, we'll start right with you. The thing, I think that in these particular instances where you're legalizing marijuana in a state, I think it continues to confuse our youth while one state may have it one way, the federal law, state law, medical marijuana, I think there's a lot of different aspects of marijuana legislation that could make this very confusing. And I think in these two particular states, you can picture youth despite the fact that you may wanna say they don't care what adults think and they're gonna look at that and say, well, the adults in this state, the political arms in this state have approved this. Therefore it must be okay, it must be healthy, it must be safe. And I think you're naturally gonna see additional usage in those particular scenarios. They're gonna use that information to back their usage and say, well, if you can do it, then therefore I can as well. David Boyer, do you wanna make a comment? Okay. I'm gonna mix around a little bit. Unless you wanna go in order, is that easier for you guys to go in order? I'll mix it up. I don't care. David, go for it. Keep you on your toes a little bit. Yeah. I think what's going on in states like Washington and Colorado have really fostered a discussion between about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol which are the two most used substances in our society today and that's not gonna change anytime soon. And I think what it does is reaffirm that marijuana just like alcohol is for adults 21 and over. I think it doesn't make sense that the penalties aren't the same for a marijuana drug dealer selling to children where a liquor store owner selling to a minor has really harsh penalties. So I think if we had those same penalties in place for marijuana and a regulation to go with that, then you would see children's use go down. Mike, Friesinger? I would agree with the chief that it has caused significant confusion in my own personal experience in working with youth who've been summoned for possession of marijuana. I hear all sorts of kind of crazy things that I think have been influenced by particularly the local referendum in Portland. I remember one young man in particular saying, well, it's legal now and I had to say to him, well, A, you don't live in Portland, you are from another community and B, you're 16. So the referendum actually has no impact on the legality of your use. And so I would agree that there's some misinformation and confusion out there that doesn't make it difficult to deal with in a really purposeful way. Garnia? Yeah, I mean, I don't think that our organization can really speak to perceptions of harm around youth. So that's not something I feel like I can essentially really address. I think what we saw with current laws around criminalization of marijuana is they're not necessarily effective in discouraging youth drug use either. So I think a lot remains to be seen about watching what kind of happens in Washington and Colorado. But I think what we all can agree on is that what criminalization, maybe we can all agree on that, but criminalization isn't necessary, isn't an effective response to decreasing youth drug, youth marijuana use rates. Got. I think it clearly has impacted perceptions of risk and not just Washington and Colorado and not just the Portland ordinance, but even our own medical marijuana program in Maine. I think it's no accident that the percentage of students who believe there's no risk or only a slight risk of using marijuana has started increasing since 2009 when the Maine Medical Marijuana Program came online. So I think even that program itself is sending some confused messages to our youth. And in terms of use rates, most of our other substances are trending down and marijuana is the only one that's remaining flat. So I think that's an indicator that there's something going on. And I think certainly the campaigns in Washington and Colorado, the ones that are going on here in Maine across the country are contributing to that. I think Mike Sauss checks the best one to answer this next question. All of you talking about there is some confusion going on. So let's put it clear, especially for our youth who is watching or will be watching this, is it legal now to buy, sell and use marijuana in the city of Portland, chief? I wish I could say it would even be clear once I say it, but there would be others, I think that would state otherwise probably, but in the city of Portland, no, it is not legal currently to possess, sell or use marijuana. And I'll simply just state that in the state of Maine, we'll just focus on Maine, the preemption laws are in full effect and have been for a long time. It's a basic legal principle that says federal law preempts state law, which preempts local ordinances. And I think there's some simple reasons for that. The state of Maine doesn't want the city of Portland to essentially do whatever it wants. We could say preemption doesn't exist. So something that I would love to see happen is the city of Portland have the opportunity to make its own firearms regulations. What works for us doesn't necessarily work for a small town in Franklin County where I grew up. Well, you can't do that under state law. There's one state law that regulates that. And therefore, when we have the ordinance, which was passed by a majority of Portland residents, that's what made that tricky, the conversation around the fact that just because we passed that doesn't mean in fact that it preempts state law. So no, it is not legal in the city of Portland. In my eyes as the chief of the Portland Police Department to use, possess, or sell marijuana. Barnea? Yeah, so we've talked about this extensively before. Maine has the authority and autonomy to use its resources how it sees fit. And that exists also for the Portland Police. They can prioritize certain things over other things. They choose to prioritize enforcing certain laws over, for example, enforcing jaywalking laws. And so we really hope that what the Portland voters overwhelmingly sent a message to the Portland Police to the city officials that they want adults to not be penalized for possessing marijuana, for possessing 2.5 ounces of marijuana within the city. David, do you have a comment? Does anyone else wanna chime in here? Have a comment. You know, the chief said that the state can't go against federal law. And yet we have a medical marijuana program, which is 100% out of compliance with federal law. And that's okay. Voters approved it. And you know, the administration, the government, and Maine hasn't done anything against that, even though the federal government could come and raid dispensaries any day they wanted to now. And you know, voters approved overwhelmingly that Portland should change its ordinance to say that adults should be able to possess marijuana. There's no requirement that the police in Portland enforce the state law. They're allowed to, they can cite it and they have since the ordinance passed, but there's no requirement. Just like there's no requirement for police to pull people over that go five miles over the speed limit or J-Walk. They know it's not worth their time and energy or the taxpayers' time and money. So voters approved in November that police should treat adults possessing small amounts of marijuana like people J-Walking or not wearing a seatbelt. Got. I'm certainly not gonna speak to, I mean, I think the chief covered what's legal in Portland better than President Lincoln as someone who doesn't live in Portland. But you know, I think, you know, from our perspective, I mean, I think he's covered well the preemption issues and you know, really, I think in a certain sense the, what happened in the city of Portland is a symbolic victory. It's a symbol of trying to advance, you know, an initiative across the state. So I mean, and you know, I think it harkens back to the earlier question. And then in one of the side effects of this is it does send very confusing signals to, to our youth, which Mike kind of illuminated earlier. So, you know, I think there's a lot of confusion, but you know, that's what I have to say. Okay. Mike Barsinger, do you wanna make a comment? I think that the referendum is very symbolic, but I think that the confusion that exists in the differing opinions that we see even amongst this small panel really highlights the need for clearer regulation and a more unified approach to marijuana use that comes down from top leadership so that we can be particularly with regards to youth marijuana use being able to present on a unified front. All right, our next question. There have been many assertions that marijuana is safer than alcohol. What evidence do you know of which supports or contradicts this for youth? David? Well, the World Health Organization, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and even our president recently said that marijuana is safer than alcohol. You look at the science, marijuana is less addictive than alcohol. It's less toxic, less harmful. It doesn't lead to violent or belligerent behavior. So the science is clear. I don't think anybody on this panel would dispute that. Keith? I guess I would say I am not a scientist, nor am I a medical doctor. What I will say is that if we start drawing a comparison between alcohol and cigarettes and anything, that's an incredibly low bar for us to work on. Is it safer than alcohol? That's not saying a whole lot that it's safer than alcohol. Is it the impacts of the social costs of alcohol and tobacco versus marijuana? That is an incredibly low bar for us to look at. The impacts of what we deal with on a regular basis every single day in the police department in City of Portland is substance abuse drives crime. Substance abuse overall drives social ills across the board. It's a fact of life. It's something that I can speak to. And you can talk about that marijuana may not cause an individual to be belligerent. In some folks, but the sale of marijuana, on the other hand, causes problems for me. It causes problems for the community. And again, I think that's nothing that we would argue here either the sale of the trafficking of marijuana and any other drug is certainly problematic. Dave, did you want to speak to that? Yeah, I mean, I would agree with the chief that having adults purchasing marijuana from drug dealers, from criminals, is exposing people to a criminal element that they otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. If they could go to licensed regulated businesses to buy marijuana, instead of drug dealers, you wouldn't have that violence. You wouldn't have that crime. And it is important to compare marijuana to alcohol because alcohol is legal, and so is tobacco, but we don't even bother comparing it to tobacco because everyone knows tobacco is really bad for you and causes lots of harm, lots of death. Whereas alcohol, we celebrate alcohol in our society. We use it at weddings, we toast with it. There's ridiculous commercials on the Super Bowl for alcohol, yet it has very bad effects on our society. 40,000 people a year die from alcohol, not including accidents. And that number for marijuana is zero. So our point is adults can responsibly use alcohol and marijuana, and given that marijuana is safer than alcohol, we shouldn't be staring people to drink when there's a safer alternative to relax after hard days of work. Scott, Mike, I thought you were gonna raise your hand there at me. Did you have a comment back or no? I thought you were raising your hand. You were fixing your cuff, and I thought you were raising your hand. Yeah, I was raising my hand. I'm not sure of the format. I think that if we look at alcohol versus marijuana in that conversation, I don't think that in that particular instance it's okay because we do this for alcohol. Alcohol has failed. It's failed across the board, so therefore we should do that with marijuana. That's okay. Maybe we fix alcohol a little bit. Fixes a strong word, right? We try to work with that some more around advertising and access, rather than just say, well, okay, if that's okay here, then marijuana should be okay. We should allow that to do the same thing. I think it's a slippery slope because alcohol's bad news, and we know it's the number one drug that is used and abused out there in society. So to me, again, it kind of goes back to that comparison. Chief, are you really want to draw that? Are you for alcohol prohibition? No, I'm not. Okay, go ahead. I think he raises a good point. Alcohol's the number one abused drug, or regulated drug. Regulation has failed in that sense. So do we really want to regulate marijuana like alcohol? Do we want to have those results? Do we want to have more youth using? I don't think so. To me, this comparison is the right hearing. Is marijuana a safe drug? No, it is not. It has impacts on IQ, it has impacts on mental health, it has impact on the future and success of youth. It can seriously derail a youth's future. That's a huge impact. It doesn't only impact the individual, it impacts communities, it impacts worker productivity. I mean, it's a deep, lasting impact on everybody. That real quick, actually, we just got a question from the audience, what about how marijuana affects youth? And I think you sort of just alluded to that. So I mean, there's, like I said, there's a study that's shown that there's links to IQ drops, there's the studies on the impact on mental health, academic success in futures. So I think there's some significant impacts, so it's not a safe drug. I mean, this whole alcohol and marijuana comparison is about, it sends a signal, it sends a mixed message to youth, I believe that marijuana is safe. I think we saw it in the bus ads that ran here in Portland. The sort of choose marijuana over alcohol, choose coke over Pepsi, that's irresponsible messaging that is implying that marijuana is a safe product. I don't think that comparison is helpful. It's not a safe product. Brian, you have, or Mike, Arzinga, before we move on, do you want to talk about that's the last question? Sure, in my organization, we really don't feel that we can weigh in on the relative safety of marijuana versus alcohol. Our concerns really are around the use of our criminal justice system to try and discourage and deter marijuana use. I think we see that the harms of sending people through our criminal justice system are really terrible. Our marijuana laws, we've been waging a war on drugs for 40 years. We have the largest criminal justice system in the world. Our criminal justice system is vastly unfair, particularly when we look at enforcement of drug laws. When we look at enforcement of marijuana laws nationally, African-Americans are over three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites here in Maine. That number is over twice as likely. So our concern around this is really around the harms that come with using our criminal justice system to try to address what really is a public health issue. Mike, do you have a follow-up to that? In addressing youth marijuana use. And I agree, in large part, with the science referenced earlier about marijuana use amongst responsible, moderate marijuana use for adults. And I'm not gonna try to reference the science about marijuana use amongst youth, instead I'm gonna reference how I've seen it affect the youth that I've worked with personally. And they're really clear and capable of identifying how marijuana use has really impacted what we call achieving traditional normative adolescent milestones. And that's continuing participation in sports and after-school clubs and activities, relationships with their friends, their grades and their connections with their family and in their community. And so that's what I've experienced firsthand. I wanna get to this next question. According to the main integrated youth health survey, a little more than six out of 10 high school students report, in Portland report, easy access to marijuana. Do you think legalizing marijuana will only increase that access to drugs for youth? Scott, do you wanna take this question first? I think it certainly will. And it's gonna create, and when we talk about access, there's two forms of access, there's retail access. So, commonly we've heard from some advocates that, well, drug dealers don't ID. Okay, fine, retailers will ID, but does the 21-year-old friend of the 20-year-old who wants marijuana, are they gonna ID? No, so social access is gonna be a huge issue with this. You're gonna have many more social contacts that are gonna have access to this drug, which makes it much more easy, it's gonna make it much more easier for youth to access it. Referencing back on the talk around the criminal element. Another thing we have to consider is that right now there are youth who are not exposed to drug dealers, who are not exposed to their criminal element. So under legalization will be exposed to retail marketing. So that's another thing that we have to think about. So there's, I think it's certainly between the messaging, the marketing, greater social access, to me it's common sense that it's gonna be more available. David? I don't think it will for children. I think the majority of Americans support ending marijuana prohibition and they care just as much as our youth as everybody else. When you think about marijuana prohibition stated goals of not having marijuana in our society, it's failed. When you have 80% of high school seniors saying it's easy or fairly easy to get access to marijuana, then we need to rethink that policy. And Scott mentioned people buying from friends. Yeah, just like when we regulate alcohol, you have to be 21 to purchase it. And that's not to say that teenagers don't experiment with alcohol. Sure they do, but when they do have to beat the system and break the law, they usually have an older brother or older sister or a friend who care about them. Whereas a drug dealer, they have other substances to get kids hooked on. They don't care if you're 12 years old or 16 years old. So that's the gateway is that black market. And when we're not honest with our kids about the relative harms of these substances, then they're not gonna believe authorities on other things that they really should when people say that marijuana is really bad for you. And even to the point that you'll die from it and that kind of hyperbolic messaging, and then kids try it and realize that it is relatively benign. Then they're not gonna believe their parents or authorities when more dangerous situations occur with harder drugs or drinking and driving and things like that. So it's really important that we're honest with our kids because they are smarter than we give them credit for. And they'll definitely appreciate it. I can't help but notice your facial expressions a little bit through some of that. Do you have a comment? No, I mean, I just say, yeah, there's gonna be older brothers and sisters that care about their, anyone who went through college knows how it goes. I mean, when I turned 21, all my 20 year old friends, I became their best friend. Same thing would happen with marijuana. There's no reason to expect that that would be any different. So that social access problem again, I think is gonna be really huge with marijuana. We legalize it. Keith? Absolutely. I do think that it will increase usage for youth. And let me just draw a simple cop scenario for you. So there's alcohol in the fridge and the house that youth lives in. Is that easier to get than to find a friend to go to a store to do whatever, to have access to alcohol? Of course it is. How do most people get started in using prescription drugs or diverting the proper use of prescription medication? They go to the medicine cabinet is where they go. They don't go to the deep dark corner and get it from some shady drug dealer. They get it because a doctor gave their parents a hundred oxys for a hangnail and it happens to be sitting in the medicine cabinet and readily available. That's what happens on a day to day basis. So if we say that it's not gonna be any easier, that it's not gonna increase with youth when marijuana is in the home. And we're telling society that it's legal and their parents smoke it. And I don't know what you would do. You pour water in the vodka bottle and even it all out. I don't know what you put in a bag of weed that your parents have to equal it all out. But if it's in the home, of course it's gonna have easier access to it. And of course you're gonna have increased use. If I could just follow up really quickly with two statistics. In Colorado, when the medical system was getting started there for marijuana and regulated, teen use went down two points where nationally it rose two points. And if you look at Maine in a comparison to New England, Maine has the lowest marijuana use rates for our children compared to the rest of New England, even though Maine has been on the forefront of marijuana policy with having decriminalization the longest and the medical system the longest. So there isn't that correlation. I just wanna say, another statistic to throw out is I don't think it's an accident that the top states with past 30 day use of youth for all medical marijuana states, they're all at the top. As far as the highest rates of 30 day usage. I don't think that's an accident. Rodney? Yeah, well I think the high rates of youth that have access to marijuana now are really clear indication of the failure of our criminalization model. I think we're gonna obviously see statistics in the future coming out of Washington and Colorado. However, we do have some information from an international context. In 2001, in response to rising drug use rates, Portugal actually passed a law that decriminalized all drug possession. And it's been about 13 years since that law was passed and they've had some really positive outcomes. They've actually seen a significant decrease in youth drug use rates, particularly from youth age 13 to 19. So I think that's some really interesting kind of information to consider when we're talking about possible impacts of legalization on youth use rates. Before we move on to the next question, Mike, do you wanna add to that, Mike Weisinger? Yeah, we've had 108 cases in 15 months of operation, 80 of which have been substance-related. And I know of five cases in particular where in the young person's home was a member of the family who had a medicinal marijuana card. And it really created additional challenge beyond the normal case that we got. And in three of those instances, the young person identified as accessing the marijuana they were caught with from their family member who had a medicinal marijuana card. And remember, we're doing restorative justice and so people are able to talk about their participation, give their perspective, talk about the impact. And it really created some tenuous moments in these discussions with these families about the young person's perception about marijuana use, how it was impacting their kind of overall development, where they were at, changes that had taken place in that family dynamic. And it really created an additional level of difficulty in terms of working through that case. Another question from our audience, I'm gonna read this to you. I keep hearing the panelists address the criminal justice system and I'm assuming that the reference there is to incarcerated adults. What about main students who won't be able to access federal student loans if they are charged and convicted with a marijuana possession or consumption charge? I don't think parents know about this immediate and potentially long-lasting effect on a use future success. Chief? Yeah, I think that I'll draw I guess two points from that comment. I guess the first one is we start talking about prosecutions in the criminal justice system. Let's be very clear in the state of Maine of what we're talking about here. Today we talk about decriminalization in the state of Maine up to two and a half ounces of marijuana is a civil offense. So if there's any misconception that you have a joint in your pocket you're going to prison, that's not the truth. It's not gonna happen. Couldn't happen for possession of less than two and a half ounces of marijuana. So I definitely wanna make sure that that's clear. There was a lot of back and forth around the city of Portland ordinance in reference to that. I will also say that when we start talking about student loans as an example if that's having a negative impact on our youth then again do we legalize marijuana or as a society do we decide we're gonna address that one particular issue and say well maybe we shouldn't ban student loans because you were 16 years old and you had a joint. It doesn't make any sense to me to have a system and just say all right well it's definitely a valid point here. Let's just legalize it. Let's just throw in the towel we're gonna legalize the whole thing because we did have a negative impact there because there are negative impacts without question. Too many pieces of legislation. Certainly in that particular instance we're talking about youth, we're talking about their futures. Nobody wants somebody's future to be scarred or hampered in any way by youthful indiscretion. But again I don't think we should just say all right well let's just legalize it then and call it a day. I know you wanted to mention something. I just want to kind of echo that and want to make clear that this is actually one thing one of Sam means for for pillars. We agree we don't think one choice that a youth makes should scar them for the rest of the lives. We agree so we but the thing and just like the chief said you don't need to legalize marijuana to fix that problem. You can fix it. We can start talking about fixing that problem now. We don't need to wait till 2016 to legalize it and meaning to start addressing that problem. So let's start talking or let's see how we can address that. But totally agree I don't, we don't believe that that should follow a student around for the rest of our life but legalization really isn't the answer to that issue. Grania do you want to say something? I just addressed that really quickly. I think with in regards specifically to federal student aid even just a citation could potentially cost someone their federal student aid. So when we're talking about just issuing a citation for adult possessing up to 2.5 ounces that can have real life consequences. So yeah, would you have a question? Step right up. If I with financial aid then because it's come up a lot with Maine Sam's is that it only affects your financial aid if the offense is while you're already receiving financial aid. So if a student was charged with possession of a joint in high school or even outside of a time that they were receiving financial aid it will have no impact on their financial aid ever. David or Mike do you want to comment on this one or do you want me to move on to another question? Sure. On the ample time. I think, you know, kids often make mistakes and those types of punishments are counterproductive. You know, our last three presidents all admitted to using marijuana and they're president now. And yeah, we have kids especially the urban youth that gets a marijuana charge and it follows them the rest of their life. And yes, Maine is decriminalized but there's lots of states that aren't decriminalized that carry very harsh penalties. Some people are actually in jail for their life for marijuana offense for just possession. And that's ridiculous, that is crazy. So I do think we as neighbors to other states that have harsher penalties have a moral imperative to do the right thing and be the example for the rest of the country. Mike, do you want to comment for me? Nope, you're all set. All right, let me get to this next question where in about 20 minutes I want to kind of move on here. Internet, I'm sure everybody knows this and seen it washed with marijuana products such as pot tart, pot soda, candy of all types. These types of products clearly attractive to the youth. So some of these products almost impossible to tell apart from actual candy that kids could get at their local store. So what can we do to make sure that these do not find their way into our kids' hands? How can we prevent these products from being marketed in Maine? David? Yeah, I think we can, we have the opportunity, given that this is a new industry to the opportunity to create responsible regulations right off the bat, there can be broad rules covering advertising, labeling, testing, serving sizes, additives, how we advertise, where you can advertise, what type of advertisements you can do. The tobacco industry was initially poorly regulated and we know about Joe Camel and the tobacco scientists that say tobacco is safe. And there was not very much public knowledge about the health effects of tobacco as we currently have for marijuana. So I would argue that we have the opportunity to make sure it's done right. It doesn't make sense that we would want marijuana to be sold by criminals instead of licensed businesses. You can see behind you there's some pictures of what we were describing earlier. Scott, do you wanna comment on this? Well, tobacco and alcohol companies still develop and market products that appeal to youth. So if we're gonna look at that as a potential success for marijuana, I would argue one way we can prevent this from happening is not allowing it to happen in Maine. If we allow a big marijuana corporate cannabis to set up in Maine, I mean, this is what they're gonna bring to Maine. You know, the regulation, if we were to legalize marijuana in Maine, the regulations we get upon a bill passing or a referendum passing, those would be the best regulations we'd ever get. A lobbyist would come in and strip it away. I mean, it's just as they do with alcohol and tobacco, they've, a lot of prevention efforts, a lot of prevention initiatives are fought very hardly by well-paid lobbyists. So, you know, the best scenario we could ever get is when it passes, and then it would quickly be eroded away. So I think the best way to prevent it is just prevent it, prevent them from setting up in Maine and not legalizing. Ronja? I think setting up a regulatory framework is not really within the focus of my organization's mission. But I do think we spend so much money enforcing marijuana laws under this criminalization model. I mean, in 2010, Maine spent almost $9 million just enforcing marijuana possession laws. So I think that's a lot of resources that could be better directed into education programs that educate around concerns around marijuana use. So, yeah. Okay, Chief, I wanna get to you next. Do you have a comment? Yeah, I sure do. I would agree, you know, with Scott, when we just say, okay, that's simply, I think we could sit here and say, do we think this is the right way to do business? Should our youth walk into a 7-Eleven? No matter what happens with marijuana legislation, it's legalized tomorrow across the state that we think this is a good idea. And I think let's throw a referendum out there for that and take a simple vote to say that that's ludicrous, that they'd have access to that. From a legislative standpoint, you can look at synthetic cannabinoids when you're talking about the spice and how you could walk into a 7-Eleven and get the spice off the rack until that was made illegal in the state of Maine. Now, it's the same thing. We have a lot of issues around meth and the precursors to that and how do we really try to regulate something where they change one chemical formula and all of a sudden, now that's legal and this other one's not. But I think we can come to agreement across the board on things like this. It speaks for itself. This one slide is the entire campaign against allowing this to happen, period. You're gonna regulate it, just ban it. Mike? I struggle with this issue in particular. I don't drink, but I am privy to the advertisements like I think there's a Shmirnov Marshmallow and I mean, I don't know of the adults that are drinking these things but I have a sneaking suspicion that's not necessarily their target audience. And so I mean, I think that if there was some good policy in place for responsible adults targeted at moderate use, there could be some checks and balances and some safety protocols to ensure that these things don't fall into the hands of youth. But... Good audience, a question from the audience? I want to ask the panel. We all agree that tobacco and alcohol are harmful. They have health consequences. And marijuana does have long-term consequences as well but it seems to me that they are largely a product of our legal system. And I'm wondering what are the long-term consequences of marijuana that we're trying to protect people from and if those are simply health effects, do the anti-legalization panelists also support the ban of cigarettes and alcohol? Thank you. Chief, do you want to take this? I know you already mentioned the ban on cigarettes but if you want to go ahead and kind of repeat that a little bit for alcohol, rather. There's a lot in there, so I apologize. This is a great question. I do think the various aspects of that question have been answered a few different ways up here so far tonight. But I guess what I would say is that there are a multitude of negative aspects of marijuana. Certainly health being one of them. We're talking about here tonight. We're talking about youth access. That's why we're here. And when we focus on that and you talk about the behavioral health issues, the IQ issues that are involved and any, let me go back to tobacco versus marijuana. So now we're saying that from a marijuana standpoint, even a medical marijuana standpoint, you shouldn't smoke cigarettes, but it's okay if you smoke medical marijuana. That doesn't make any sense to me as a kid from a small town in Franklin County just using a simple common sense filter. If somehow this has determined the long-term positive effects of that from a medical marijuana standpoint or that, hey, this doesn't bother you at all, we should just legalize it. You would think that they would study this to the point that we wouldn't be smoking it. Because if you're smoking it, it's having a negative impact on your body. And again, I think I go back to alcohol and tobacco and we say, well, just because we're already doing those things, we should do this. And that's not the case. It's not the case in my book. I think you learn and you realize that if I could snap my fingers today and get rid of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, I'd be out of a job. And that'd be okay with me because it would positively impact the community. In ways we would never imagine. And so that's not gonna happen. Alcohol is here, it's legal, tobacco is here, and it's legal, and we regulate that to the best of our ability. But even in those cases, it's poorly done because it has negative impacts across the board on everybody, especially youth, again, which is why we're here tonight. David, you were shaking your head? I'm sorry. I apologize if I missed a bunch. Yeah, I don't think that if alcohol was banned, that would be better for our society because we tried that with alcohol prohibition and it didn't work. It turned millions of adults who are otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. And with that came violence. Al Capone was a gangster, but he was giving people alcohol what they wanted. And instead of having marijuana sold by Al Capone's, marijuana should be sold by licensed, regulated, tax-paying businesses, right now all that money is being flushed down the toilet and going to drug cartels and drug dealers rather than our state. Money that the state needs so we could spend money for our substance abuse programs. So we could spend money having PSAs, telling people not to use marijuana and drive. So, and I think we would have a healthier society if marijuana was legal. And if half the people who drank alcohol every day chose to use marijuana, we'd have a healthier society. There's no doubt about that. Scott, your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I think the chief addressed, well, the question about tobacco and alcohol, I think we certainly need to do a better job of regulating it. The reality is what it is. No matter how much I would want to and not saying that I do, if we're never going back there, although I would posit that. I think when people were considering 50, 60 years ago these questions, if they knew today, well, if they knew about alcohol and tobacco today, or we know, I'm trying to understand that, but we know about the today then, you know, the outcome may have been different. And we have better science. We have the science now on marijuana. So there's no excuse. We know the impacts. I mean, if you want to know the health impacts, there's this handout on the table developed by the state that well outlines the impact on youth. So, I mean, the science is clear on the impacts of marijuana. So, and again, just like the chief said, this is because we're having issues with these two. It doesn't make sense to make another issue. So, Rodney. Yeah, again, I don't feel that I can weigh in on the relative safety of alcohol versus tobacco versus marijuana. But I think what we have seen with tobacco is successes in using education as a way to prevent youth use rates. I was looking at something from Maine Healthy Partnerships and high school age smoking in Maine dropped by 43% in the decade from 1999 to 2009. And that occurred not because we were locking people up or punishing people for smoking cigarettes. That occurred because we were investing in education programs to educate youths about potential harms around smoking cigarettes. So, Mike, do you want to make a comment? Ready to move on? Yeah, ready to move on. Ready to move on. All right. We are nearing, do you have a question? Yes, absolutely. Do you want to get up to the mic or do you want to, whatever you're more comfortable with. Hi, I'm Jim Moses. I'm a school administrator here in Portland. And we just got into the conversation with the kind of the different messages we're sending. I'm getting a little confused with the conversation because a lot of that's about thoughts. And I thought the title of this was about youth. I would say that I'm getting on in years. And in my 40 years in education, we've had this conversation many times, going back 40 years. And gymnasiums and auditoriums about marijuana use, being a child of coming of age of the 60s when I came out of the shadows and talked to Dr. Nethany who still are the visions we face. And my role as school administrator, which I had not seen before in my years in the classroom so much, what would be as to it is the damage that every marijuana use is doing to a percentage of high school students. These are the cases that are performing. These are the cases that don't go to the classrooms. These are the cases that go self-esteem. These are the cases that are high every day, all day. And I don't want the legal stuff. Yeah, you're right. Prohibition didn't work. We know that kids risk their life and marijuana use is no work. You might know cigarettes, and I think education in the long term is a wonderful thing. So I don't know where I stand on the legal issues, but I'm just telling them, day to day, the damage that these kids are doing. And legalize it or not, and I'm not sure. I can scar you to score you a bag of bottom about 15 seconds tomorrow morning with my contacts. And what I think David, that I could say is I appreciate your comment about the last three presidents. That might answer a lot of questions. Not really, it's hard to know. But if we're gonna talk about you, just telling you from the guy who deals with every single day, as do the police and RSRO and my high school, it's a problem. It's a problem for probably the heavy uses in small percentage that's gonna have huge impacts. And I just like when we keep the conversation about what are we gonna do. I think probably what's gonna be legalized in this country and every state eventually at some point in time. Education is the key, but I just don't have, I just, I see it and it's problematic for me. And I think they focus on what we do about that. I think we get by it. Thank you. And we talked about that as far as the accessibility for the youth. And I'm not sure if you heard the answer to that, but many of them on the panel were saying it would be more accessible to them. Not all of them feel that way. But if that's the case, then Chief, I don't know if you wanna address that or Gania or Scott or anybody. I'm sorry, which part of that? Oh, I'm sorry. Just the part about being more accessible. If it's legalized for kids. I think that there's no question in my mind that it would be more accessible if it's legalized. And how that impacts our youth in the negative manner, I believe it impacts our youth. And having regular conversations with our SROs and one of them just recently writing to us around the hallways reeking of marijuana all day in a learning environment where they're there in that, even from a scientific medical standpoint, they're in that zone, they're in that problematic area around brain development and yet they're high. And again, the common sense approach says, is that gonna have a negative impact on their future? Of course it is. Of course it is. So I certainly appreciate your comment. Scott, you wanna say something? I kinda wanna make three quick points. First, I wanna address sort of the last point you made about the inevitability. I would challenge that. I don't think it necessarily is inevitable. We have quite a bit to learn from Colorado and Washington. So I don't believe that that ship has sailed quite yet. The second point I would make is that the state did a great report on the main integrated youth health survey and looking at grades. And I think it illustrates what you said. If you look at, and this is common with many substances, but it's true with marijuana. If you look at the students that are getting Ds and Fs, a larger percentage of them are using marijuana compared to the students that are getting A's and B's. So if you wanna, if anybody's interested in getting that report, I can hook you up, let me know. And then the final point, again, talking about, and we'll kinda go back to something that was mentioned before about this idea of substitution, that we should steer people towards alcohol or marijuana. I mean, the reality is that that may happen with casual users. A casual user may choose marijuana over alcohol or the other. That's not the case with people who are addicted. That's not the case with people who have users. They're using both. I mean, my law enforcement partners where I work in Androsgog and County would tell me when they bust parties, underage drinking parties, they're both there. Marijuana and alcohol, they're using both. Anyone who went through college, I went through college. They were both there. People were drinking and using marijuana. This idea that it's a substitute. Again, for a casual user, sure, that may be the case. But for the heavy users that are consuming most of the product, not so much. David, you wanted a comment? Yeah, I appreciate your comments, sir. And everyone on this panel agrees that we don't want our youth to use marijuana or other mind-altering substances, especially when their brain is very exposed and can hurt that. But it's tough to talk about the solution without talking about regulating marijuana because we've tried not regulating it, and it hasn't worked, obviously, by the statistics we all have quoted. But like Grania said, in the 90s, with the WeCard program, with tobacco use, tobacco use went down in the 90s and has gone down. And research shows that reforming marijuana laws does not increase teen marijuana use. A 2012 study of researchers at Universities Colorado, Montana, and Oregon found, quote, no statistical evidence that legalization increases the probability of teen use and noted that the data often showed a negative relationship between legalization and teen marijuana use. State surveys of students in several states with medical marijuana laws have consistently reported declines in teen marijuana use since those laws were passed. So in surmise, regulation does work. Are we going to get to our last two questions at this point? We want to wrap up the evening with these, and I'm going to ask each of you on our panel. You've all stated there is a unique risk for youth who use marijuana. And we, as adults and leaders in the community, are all responsible for creating an environment which supports the drug-free development of our youth. So the question is, what do you see as your role in creating such an environment? Mike, do you want to go first? Not the chief, Mike. The other, Mike? Yeah, there are lots of opportunities. Getting involved in a local coalition. We rely heavily on volunteers, as do many of the healthy community partnerships and drug-free community partnerships that we work with. And just be active and involved in young people's lives. I'm hesitant to draw a correlation between those kids who are really doing poorly in school and marijuana use. But I know Jim and I have both seen the change over time in a young person that takes place after the marijuana use begins. And those are of most concern for me, because I think there's a lot of other factors in some of those youth who side of it. Keith? Yeah, sure. I think engagement. I think you're going to hear that over and over again. I think education. I think keeping an open mind to the conversation. The key to me is to be part of the conversation. We talk about sex education. We talk about alcohol. Are we having the same conversations with our youth around marijuana? I'm not sure what our grade would be as a panel as far as trying to stay focused on youth. I would agree with you, Jim. I found myself waiting towards the legalization to kind of debate myself. But I think when you have a panel like this and just read the fancy little titles under the organizations under each of these, we can stand together and say consistently and have kept coming back to that, that nobody up here is for youth and youth's access and to marijuana. And I think we need to be consistent on that. We need to be strong on that line, if no other line, than that line. And make sure that that's in the forefront of our conversations. Rania, your thoughts on that? Yeah, the ACLU of Maine really sees that our role in this whole conversation is reducing the use of the criminal justice system to try and address marijuana use among adults and youth. We really believe that we need to be shifting our response from a criminal justice response to more of a public health response that advocates health-based solutions and directs resources away from enforcing laws into education programs. So that's really, I think, where we see our role in this conversation. David? I think my role and everyone's role should be having an open dialogue with our children, with the youth, so that they feel comfortable to come and talk to adults about what's going on at school around the neighborhood and being honest with them about the relative harms of these substances and other substances. Again, when young people realize that marijuana is not as dangerous as they've been led to believe, they are less likely to trust authorities' warnings about other very more dangerous drugs. So my role will be to advocate for a system that regulates marijuana-like alcohol, because the statistics do back it up that regulation works. Setting that check will make children's use go down, and I think that's why we're all here tonight, obviously. Scott? So as I stated at the opening, Samayne does have a stance on the legalization question, which I think is probably pretty clear now. But really, one of our main goals is, actually, our first goal is to inform manors and main policy with the science of today's marijuana. And that's our main goal. We just, ultimately, we know that adults are going to have different opinions on this policy question. But no matter what their opinion is, they should be armed with the facts. And particularly with our youth, I think it's important that no matter where an adult falls on that policy question, it is important that they're sharing valid science and information with their children. I mean, it is important. I mean, kids have access to the internet. They can Google and look for all kinds of different information. It is important that we're up front with our youth. And I think that the chief is right. Just that constant communication and conversation is huge. It's a huge protective factor for youth to know that adults value their opinion and will listen to them. And so we think that's our role, is to help providing the information to guide those conversations. Very much. On behalf of 21 Reasons and the City of Portland, our panelists, thank you so much for being here and having this important conversation tonight. For a rebroadcast of this show, check the CTN 5 listings for more information on tonight's hosts and panelists. They can be found on 21Reasons' website. That's www.21Reasons.org, as well as the City of Portland's public health website. That is www.portlandmain.gov. As a reminder, the views expressed this evening are those of our panelists and not necessarily our hosts. So thank you all for being here tonight and sharing in this important conversation and a big round of applause for all of our panelists. Thank you. Thank you.