With Washington and Colorado voting for recreational marijuana use, it's time to update how we educate young people on drugs.
Washington state and Colorado are now the first political jurisdictions in the world to legalize marijuana. Voters in Massachusetts took similar steps, making Massachusetts the 18th state to approve marijuana for medicinal purposes. Tuesday night's election signaled a profound shift in the way many Americans are beginning to view drug policy, with voters favoring treatment and prevention over interdiction and incarceration.
Critics of the marijuana initiatives argue that legalization will make our children more susceptible to drug use – but without the burden of mass incarceration, the states can allocate more funding to prevention. In fact, Washington's law has set a 25% sales tax to fund schools, health insurance and drug prevention – and today's teens need effective drug prevention.
A recent Casa Columbia survey (pdf) determined that high schoolers estimate nearly one in five of their classmates is drugging, drinking and smoking during the school day. Almost half claim they know a student who sells drugs on campus, and a third say it's easy for students to drink, use and smoke at school without getting busted. So, it's no wonder that worried parents have traditionally supported "scare the health into teenagers" media campaigns like "This is your brain on drugs."
