CANNABIS THREAT TO KIDS MUST NOT BE OVERLOOKED

In January, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to allow legal marijuana sales in unincorporated areas of the county. In its commitment to proactive community outreach, it is delaying the rollout of the permitting process. Supervisors are calling on all community groups in unincorporated areas to give as much input as possible before they begin to give permits.

During this time, we need to broaden our proactive measures and make our voices heard. What can we do now to ensure a successful legalization process in the next six months? We need to call on the California Bureau of Cannabis Control to strengthen its accountability controls to prevent the declining safety of our children due to marijuana normalization. We need to focus on educating the public about its harmful effects on young people and protecting them.

Research shows that early marijuana use is detrimental to youth. Not only is early marijuana use associated with poor school performance, higher dropout rates and impacted emotional health, a recent study finds that early cannabis use is linked to self-harm and mortality in youth already experiencing mood disorders. We need to pay special attention to these new findings today, since we know that many of our youth were hit especially hard socially and emotionally by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While recreational marijuana is not legal for people under the age of 21, teens will tell you that legalizing it, society deeming it an “essential” business, marketing, and lack of protections to prevent underage sales all contribute to the normalization and ease of acquiring cannabis for underage consumption. Cannabis consumption among teens is on the rise. Plus, a new study shows that, just like alcohol, the earlier in life that children use marijuana, the more likely and more rapidly they will develop a substance use disorder. We have consistent evidence telling us that early cannabis consumption is harmful to our youth, and that they are using cannabis more with every passing year.

Additionally, a recent analysis of poison control center calls shows that children are at increasing risk of accidental cannabis poisoning, including children younger than 5 years old. Some people are still under the assumption that cannabis cannot be overconsumed. Parents all over the country are learning the hard way that is not true. With the rise in children’s visits to emergency rooms from accidental cannabis consumption, the results can be trouble breathing, seizures, and, in the worst cases, children needing to be put in an intensive care unit on a ventilator. In 2017, California banned the use of cannabis edibles in the shapes of people, animals and fruit to protect children.

We need to ask ourselves, is that enough to protect children?

Let us continue the conversation with our communities in San Diego, and take the opportunity to speak out to the county Board of Supervisors. We need it to apply pressure on the Bureau of Cannabis Control to safeguard our communities and children. California has effective alcohol and tobacco decoy programs that help ensure that businesses do not sell to underage people. We need the bureau to create a statewide decoy program for cannabis in California.

If we want an effective ordinance that brings in revenue, is socially equitable and is beneficial to our community, we need to make our voices heard now. Experience tells us that banning illegal marijuana dispensaries is easy; enforcing the ban is expensive, and worse, futile. Experience tells us that banning marijuana billboards along California highways is easy; enforcing the ban took time and legal action. Even labeling has its challenges — a recent analysis of 75 edible marijuana products sold in Seattle, San Francisco and Seattle shows that current labeling is frighteningly unreliable, and that 83 percent of THC labels were incorrect.

We must be proactive by looking at all areas that we are currently failing, and start addressing them immediately. We must fight this head on and have plans in place for regulation, enforcement, prevention and intervention programs now. We must secure the budget to support the education about cannabis in our communities, how it affects our youth, and integrate school-based prevention, familybased prevention and community-based prevention programs to keep our children safe.

California has effective alcohol and tobacco decoy programs to discourage businesses from selling to underage people. We need such a program for cannabis.