today in "yeah that actually happened" https://www.denverpost.com/2021/04/26/stop-marijuana-glorification

i have a real question about op-eds like this - what is the point? some version of this has been written again and again over the last decade plus of state-based legalization.

what service does this provide to readers, re-litigating the legalization debates of yesteryear?

i can go through and pick apart these claims piece by piece, or i can just say this:

i am at a point in my career of reporting on drugs where i harbor a deep deep distrust of arguments "about the children" that are conspicuously lacking voices from...actual kids.

take this one, for example: https://www.the74million.org/article/as-legalization-spreads-mother-warns-about-the-dangers-of-high-potency-marijuana-that-addicted-her-teenage-latino-son/

it's a cautionary tale from a mother who says her kid acted out and ran away. but towards the end of the piece, there's this:

so he's an adult now, living independently, and his side of the story somehow isn't relevant?

i know this is an opinion piece and journalistic standards aren't typically applied to those but...that's sort of the problem here?

this stuff, to me, is deeply irresponsible to publish. but more than that -- it's disappointing that news outlets still haven't developed a higher scrutiny for tales like these.

i get asked all the time why we haven't done stories about youth use or psychosis -- i promise, it's not for lack of trying! but there's still so much that's unknown about the psychosis link, for example, that we have been ULTRA CAREFUL about this kind of story

basically - if we can't back it up, we haven't done it.

some people out there are truly unsatisfied with the answer that there is just a lot we still don't know. and that's why they ASSUME.

look at these ghastly assumptions, and look at how data is used to make them sound something other than condescending.

"but the children" is always going to be the trojan horse that gets these pieces in the paper, but they bring along every tired old trope about who uses cannabis and how they behave.

the only people these pieces speak to are the folks who were against legalizing the whole time.

and WE KNOW that is an ever-shrinking group. so i come around to my original question - what service does this perform to the reader? how is this advancing the dialogue in a meaningful way?

also.....which children? more than 4,000 people under the age of 20 in Colorado are enrolled in the medical marijuana program. https://drive.google.com/file/d/168odNXsafETJrXP0bS6P-GnCnSJt8xxL/view

about 20% of teens say they use marijuana, but about the same about say they smoke cigarettes/vape nicotine. nearly 30% of teens drink alcohol. if nicotine and alcohol are comparable -- or even larger threats -- to the youths, where are all THOSE op eds? https://nccd.cdc.gov/Youthonline/App/Results.aspx?TT=A&OUT=0&SID=HS&QID=QQ&LID=XX&YID=2017&LID2=&YID2=&COL=S&ROW1=N&ROW2=N&HT=QQ&LCT=LL&FS=S1&FR=R1&FG=G1&FA=A1&FI=I1&FP=P1&FSL=S1&FRL=R1&FGL=G1&FAL=A1&FIL=I1&FPL=P1&PV=&TST=False&C1=&C2=&QP=G&DP=1&VA=CI&CS=Y&SYID=&EYID=&SC=DEFAULT&SO=ASC

augh i said i wasn't going to debunk this op-ed and now i'm doing it.

YOU KNOW WHAT no i'm not. i'm gonna go play video games.