No sooner than we posted Ingebrigtsen update: grumpy cat is still grumpy about medical cannabis & intractable pain, than someone forwarded an email with the subject line: December Update from Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen.
In the email, the Alexandria Republican claims (along with a link to the "study," that's a pdf of a press release):
National Families in Action, an organization consisting of scientists, business leaders, physicians and policy makers released startling statistics from the University of Michigan proving that marijuana use is increased.
This study states that today 8thGrade use of marijuana sits at 7%, 10th Grade-15%, and 12th Grade 21%. In 1991, by comparison, the rates sat at: 8th Grade-3%, 10th Grade-9%, 12th Grade-14%. Worse than that is the growing belief that marijuana isn’t harmful. In 1991, 79% of students believed that smoking marijuana regularly was harmful, but today only 32% share that view.
This study clearly proves that marijuana through its legalization for medical purposes in many states is only becoming more accessible and more accepted for recreational purposes by our youth. [emphasis added] Undoubtedly having a negative impacts on our youth comparable to alcohol.
This claim appears in the email under the heading Marijuana Use Up Nationally!, though Ingebrigtsen's update focuses on youth marijuana use and attitudes.
Unfortunately for Ingebrigtsen, the document contain data that do not show that legalizing medical cannabis has prompted reefer madness among America's teens. The document also states:
Marijuana , the most widely used of the illicit drugs, did not show any significant change in annual prevalence this year in any of the three grades, nor in the three grades combined. After rising for several years, the annual prevalence of marijuana has more or less leveled out since about 2010.
This year, 12 percent of 8thgraders, 25 percent of 10thgraders and 35 percent of 12thgraders reported using marijuana at least once in the prior 12 months. Of more importance, perhaps, is their daily or neardaily marijuana use (defined as smoking marijuana on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days). These rates stand at 1.1 percent, 3.0 percent and 6.0 percent in 8th, 10th and 12th grades, respectively.
In other words, one in every 16 or 17 high school seniors is smoking marijuana daily or near daily. These rates have changed rather little since 2010, but are from threetosix times higher than they were at their low point in 1991.
That's right: nationally, the use of pot among high school seniors has "changed rather little since 2010."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures webpage, State Medical Marijuana Laws:
A total of 23 states, the District of Columbia and Guam now allow for comprehensive public medical marijuana and cannabis programs. Recently approved efforts in 17 states allow use of "low THC, high cannabidiol (CBD)" products for medical reasons in limited situations or as a legal defense.
Many of those initiatives and laws were passed in 2010 or after. Wikipedia's Timeline of cannabis laws in the United States displays the passage of laws in chronological order; it's worth noting that ballot initiatives might have been passed by citizens in states like California in the 1990s, statutes that governed the medicine took a while longer to craft, but as far as we can see, ten states legalized medical marijuana before 2010, two more passed laws or ballot initiatives in 2010, with the rest coming after.
One might as well argue that the spread of medical cannabis that's legal on the state level stopped the upward trend in high school senior pot use, dead in the bong water.
It's not the first time data from the National Families in Action has been used to mislead. At Marijuana Politics, Russ Belville concluded about a different set of data in National Families in Action Misleads on Marijuana Use Trends:
Looking further back, prohibitionists back in 2011 told us that our efforts to legalize marijuana in 2012 would surely send the wrong message to the kids and greatly increase marijuana use. But when you check the rates of use since 2011, college use has increased 3.2 percent while adult use has skyrocketed by 37.5 percent. Teen use, however, is down 6.3 percent. . . .
Looking back even further, the current release of the NSDUH lists monthly use data dating back to 2002. Back then, there were just eight medical marijuana states and legalization was about to lose elections in Nevada (2002), Alaska (2004), Nevada (2006), Colorado (2006), and California (2010). Fewer than one-third of the American public supported marijuana legalization. Prohibitionists then claimed throughout the decade that the spread of medical marijuana and the filing of legalization initiatives were sending the wrong message to the youth and would certainly lead to more teen use. . . .
But as it has turned out, the twelve-year increase of over a third (35.5 percent) among those 12 and older who use marijuana once month or more is driven primarily by the increase of over one-eighth (13.3 percent) among those aged 18-25 and secondarily by the increase of almost two-thirds (65.0 percent) among adults 26 and older.
The teens? Their monthly use has decreased by almost a tenth (9.8 percent), from 8.2 percent who used monthly in 2002 to 7.4 percent who used monthly in 2014.
So, over the past dozen years, if there is any message the kids have received about marijuana, it is that they should wait until they are adults to use it.
There's that. Moreover, Ingebrigtsen stance on another issue related to Minnesota's extremely restrictive medical cannabis law also has its charms:
Now while I completely understand that medical marijuana has medicinal merits, I cannot support its use until it is an FDA regulated drug that you can purchase at your local pharmacy. Until then, I believe current medical marijuana is nothing more than baby steps to full blown legalization of marijuana.
With Big Government regulation approval, Ingebrigtsen would be happy to have medical cannabis available at WalMarts and grocery stores with pharmacies, corner drug stores--hundreds of locations across the state, rather that the (ultimately) eight dispensaries to carefully screened patients as under the current system.
Here's the document to which Ingebrigtsen directed his constituents, followed by the text of the entire email. The headline on the latter document suggests that youth use of many illicit drug is declining Indeed, the document begins:
The results from the latest national survey in the Monitoring the Future series on use of licit and illicit drugs by American teenagers show that some important improvements are taking place.
Use of ecstasy, heroin, synthetic marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes declined among US teens in 2015
That's a Blessed and Merry Christmas message the state senator from Alexandria missed a chance to share.
Here's the text of his email:
Friends and Neighbors,
I want to take a quick moment to update you about some things going on around Minnesota. As always please let me know if you have any legislative questions or concerns.
Bill
Marijuana Use Up Nationally!
On the heels of our Governor and his Commissioner of Health unilaterally approving medical marijuana use for thousands of Minnesota, a troubling report was released. National Families in Action, an organization consisting of scientists, business leaders, physicians and policy makers released startling statistics from the University of Michigan proving that marijuana use is increased.
Now while I completely understand that medical marijuana has medicinal merits, I cannot support its use until it is an FDA regulated drug that you can purchase at your local pharmacy. Until then, I believe current medical marijuana is nothing more than baby steps to full blown legalization of marijuana.
This study states that today 8thGrade use of marijuana sits at 7%, 10th Grade-15%, and 12th Grade 21%. In 1991, by comparison, the rates sat at: 8th Grade-3%, 10th Grade-9%, 12th Grade-14%. Worse than that is the growing belief that marijuana isn’t harmful. In 1991, 79% of students believed that smoking marijuana regularly was harmful, but today only 32% share that view.
This study clearly proves that marijuana through its legalization for medical purposes in many states is only becoming more accessible and more accepted for recreational purposes by our youth. Undoubtedly having a negative impacts on our youth comparable to alcohol.
Feel free to read the study by clicking here.
Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas
Marilyn and I are blessed to have so many friends and family in Senate District 8. Please take time to visit with friends and family members this holiday season. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Bill Ingebrigtsen
A Merry Christmas indeed, though as Episcopalians, we at Bluestem Prairie are still celebrating Advent in sunny Maynard.
Sadly, our humble Chippewa County home is now getting undue attention at a Minnesota-focused Big Data Scraping Listicle News article, Most People Don’t Know These 13 Super Tiny Towns In Minnesota Exist, as the world has been told these super tiny towns "are just as much a crucial part of Minnesota as anywhere in the Metro."
On the positive side, the One Minnesota message does seem to be making the rounds if the data miners are saying it.
Image: Senator Ingebrigtsen's email banner.
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