Albany’s pot pushers come for our kids — in a – Latest News
The Empire State is now in the business of spending your money to sell weed to teenagers.
For proof, look no additional than the Office of Cannabis Management’s new marketing campaign, “Cannabis Honestly.”
The OCM runs New York’s legal marijuana program, and this newest initiative went reside in July.
One of its advertisements, which I noticed on the R practice this week, reveals a dreamy-eyed teenager (or a model who appears to be like like one) looking at her telephone, together with the useful tagline MIXING WEED AND ALCOHOL IS RISKIER.
It could as effectively be: STICK TO WEED, KID, AND YOU’LL BE FINE.
Marijuana promoting geared toward anybody beneath 21 is against the law beneath state law; such advertisements are particularly banned from public transit.
OCM sure looks as if it’s breaking the law.
An eagle-eyed X consumer noticed an even worse subway advert on Tuesday, that includes a picture of one other teen and his obvious mother.
This one proclaims CANNABIS IS LEGAL FOR ADULTS 21+ IN NEW YORK STATE.
The inherent takeaway: You can’t buy it your self but, so get your dad and mom to cop some bitter for you on the dispensary.
Imagine the state Liquor Authority operating a related advert for vodka — or the Department of Taxation and Finance, which handles cigarette excises, doing one for Kools.
Remember: These are taxpayer-funded advertisements from a state company, normalizing weed use for literal kids.
But the “Cannabis Honestly” web site, the point of interest of the marketing campaign, makes the advertisements themselves look virtually benign.
The part of the location geared toward dad and mom comprises such howlers as: “Store cannabis like you would other medications.”
Yikes.
Raw marijuana isn’t and can by no means be a drugs, no matter how many states declare it one by political fiat.
It has no accepted medical use; it can’t be prescribed.
Study after research reveals that it fails to deal with the circumstances docs “recommend” it for.
As main marijuana coverage professional Kevin Sabet just lately famous in STAT News, an April systematic review in The Lancet Psychiatry discovered “no evidence any form of cannabis is effective in treating anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.”
In November, the Journal of the American Medical Association discovered that “evidence from randomized clinical trials does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most conditions for which it is promoted.”
Yet OCM’s official messaging slyly frames it as a “medication” like some other.
The website advises dad and mom to do “risk reduction coaching” with strains like, “I’d like to start with understanding what you enjoy about using weed.”
And “Avoid mixing with alcohol.”
And “Be aware of potency — stronger products increase risk.”
Huh? Such feedback flash a clear inexperienced gentle for teen drug use — growing the risk that they’ll go proper forward.
For kids, it’s the identical smooth cleaning soap.
“Weed can change how you think and feel in the moment,” the web site explains soothingly.
“It can make you feel anxious, panicked, or paranoid. It can even make anxiety or depression feel worse.”
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This gentle-parent pablum is how New York state speaks about a drug linked to a more than double risk of later-in-life psychotic problems following adolescent use, per a large JAMA Health Forum research from February.
A drug linked to a related risk for bipolar problems and elevated dangers for despair and nervousness, in response to that very same research.
A drug that a long time of Danish knowledge show could drive as a lot as 20% of psychosis amongst younger males.
The state’s web site additionally — and insanely — advises “waiting to use cannabis” as a method teenagers may mediate the hazard (although it does concede that “avoiding higher-THC products” altogether is perhaps a good thought).
It’s primarily saying: “Just tough it out till you’re 21, junior, then you’re golden!”
Sure, the location mentions in passing dangers like psychosis, despair and even hashish hyperemesis syndrome — uncontrollable vomiting attributable to weed use that can require hospitalization.
But take into account the intense little disclaimer it presents about CHS in daring: “Not everyone who uses cannabis regularly will develop” the situation.
So go forward and roll the cube.
The website’s pro-drug content material goes on and on.
But the worst failure of “Cannabis Honestly” could also be that it makes no actual effort to current — and even meaningfully acknowledge — the mountains of exhausting knowledge exhibiting particularly how weed destroys bodily and mental health.
Drug-abuse prevention completely wants to start out with kids.
An efficient marketing campaign, nonetheless, requires messaging that communicates urgency with out making teenagers too ashamed to achieve out — not a smooth concentrate on the dangers and an implication that the drug can someway ever be secure to make use of.
“Cannabis Honestly” is something however.
Instead, it’s little more than a taxpayer-funded advert for company marijuana.
Sam Munson’s most up-to-date novel is “The Sofa” (2025).
