LOCAL GROUP PLANS ANTI-POT EFFORT

Santa Maria Valley residents got briefed Thursday on the strategies
used to battle marijuana use in San Diego County.

Representatives of Health Advocates Rejecting Marijuana (HARM), a San
Diego-based activist group, visited the city at the request of
Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley to inform local leaders on how to
reverse the growing trend of marijuana use by school-aged children.

HARM was formed in 2005 from the San Diego County Marijuana Prevention
Initiative after the county was determined to be the top producer of
marijuana in the state.

The group enlisted local leaders and enthusiastic youth and instituted
a five-campaign attack on what it considers the destructive
"normalization" of marijuana use in society.

The group targets retailers or manufacturers, public venues,
pro-marijuana media, "head shops" and marijuana dispensaries in an
attempt to reduce youth exposure to them.

HARM enlisted volunteer youth to canvass San Diego County in search of
marijuana-associated products, messages and events.

Retailers targeted by HARM included Lucky Jeans, owned by Liz
Claiborne; Vans shoes; and Target stores, all of which either
manufactured or sold products that featured marijuana leaves or
messages that glorified pot use.

Public venues, such as the San Diego County Fairgrounds, were
identified by HARM as facilities that were being used to sell bongs,
pipes and other marijuana paraphernalia during arts and crafts
festivals. The group was able to get county officials to rewrite
festival contracts to prevent the sale of such products.

Likewise, HARM approached Del Mar Racetrack officials about not
permitting concerts with bands whose music promotes smoking pot.

Media normalization is another message HARM has done its best to
squelch. Radio stations popular with youth in the San Diego area have
promoted marijuana use with 420 messages, a widely known code number
for smoking pot.

HARM also targeted head shops, which sell marijuana paraphernalia, and
medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego County. HARM
representative Rebecca Hernandez cited the California Health and
Safety Code 11014.5, which de-clares sale of drug paraphernalia
illegal, as a tool against local head shops.

Their battle against dispensaries went well for a time. In 2005, San
Diego County had 22 dispensaries. HARM was able to get all of them
shuttered. Over the years, 70 have come in to replace them, but that
is far less than the estimated 1,100 in Los Angeles County, Hernandez
said.

She also said it's not just private enterprise that is sending the
wrong messages about marijuana use to children. There are currently
three pot-legalization measures on the state ballot in 2010.

"What kind of message does that send to our children?" Hernandez
asked.

Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley is planning to use the HARM battle
plan here. The group has already taken its first step in working with
St. Joseph High School to test its student-athletes for drug use.