A SENSIBLE APPROACH TO MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION THAT PROTECTS YOUNG PEOPLE

The marijuana-legalization debate can too quickly become polarized.
Guest columnist Roger Roffman argues that both sides need to tone
down the rhetoric at look at ways youth can be protected if adult
marijuana use becomes legal in Washington state.

MARIJUANA is not an entirely harmless substance, as Patti
Skelton-McGougan's guest editorial pointed out ["Legalizing marijuana
could hurt young people," Opinion, March 3].

Proposals to regulate and legalize its use for adults must include
careful planning for how children and adolescents, who are more
vulnerable to the risks posed by marijuana use, can best be protected.

But a full discussion requires not only that the proponents of change
acknowledge the risks of trying a new approach, but also that those
opposing change acknowledge the harms of current policies and the
potential of alternative strategies. They may find it's possible to
implement a policy that accomplishes both protecting youth and ending
the criminalization of responsible adult marijuana use.

A legalization policy should draw from the successes and failures of
alcohol and tobacco laws. In the success category, teenage alcohol-
and tobacco-usage rates have declined considerably since the late
1970s. Our experience shows that prevention can work and that society
can establish community norms, making clear we neither approve nor
tolerate underage use. In the failure category, youth are commonly
enticed to use alcohol and tobacco via relentless advertising and cheap prices.

We can avoid this for marijuana. A new policy should regulate the
type of advertisements that are allowed, and the product should be
priced so that its cost discourages use but still undercuts the
black-market dealers. By implementing the best aspects of alcohol and
tobacco policy and eliminating the mistakes, we can develop a
workable policy for marijuana.

We can also learn from the experiences of marijuana policy in The
Netherlands, where regulated "coffee shops" are allowed to sell the
drug to adults. This de facto legalization did not, in itself, affect
rates of marijuana use among youth.

However, rates of use among young people did increase when the number
of coffee shops was allowed to increase and the age of legal access
was set at 16. Encouragingly, these rates declined when the number of
coffee shops was reduced and the age of legal access was raised to
18. So, it would make sense for a marijuana policy in Washington
state to set the age limit at 21 and minimize the number of outlets
where marijuana can be purchased.

A marijuana-legalization policy also should allow for the price of
marijuana to be changed quickly to target the point that strikes the
best balance between discouraging use and undercutting the black
market. The newfound tax revenue from marijuana legalization should
be earmarked for prevention, education and treatment programs, and be
given to the most effective programs available.

Further, the new marijuana policy should be studied and evaluated
from Day One and adjusted if it becomes clear that it is producing
negative outcomes for youth.

Proponents of reforming the law should not imply either that
marijuana is totally harmless or that legalization will have no
impacts on youth. Public health and safety issues, and the need to
protect children from behaviors that have heightened risks for them,
are both legitimate issues which must be addressed.

Similarly, opponents of reform must acknowledge the consequences of
current laws. Criminalizing marijuana use for adults has had
questionable effectiveness in impacting use and abuse rates, and it
has demonstrably significant costs. For simply possessing marijuana,
people are jailed, get the stigma of a criminal record and lose
employment opportunities. For society there are wasted
criminal-justice resources, overcrowded jails and lost potential tax revenue.

If protecting youth is to be a central goal in shaping marijuana
policy, both sides of the discussion should avoid polarizing rhetoric
and recognize their common interest in ensuring that we treat
marijuana use in the most safe and effective way possible.