The Drug Report
The Drug Report
Drug Policy News Update: Vermont Injection Site Controversy, Youth Marijuana Use Myths, and More
Join us as we dissect Vermont's legislative decision to establish an injection site in Burlington, despite Governor Phil Scott's veto. We'll scrutinize the mixed results from British Columbia and other regions to question the efficacy and safety of these facilities. Then, let's debunk the myths around youth marijuana use trends from the Colorado Healthy Kids Survey. We'll expose how changes in data collection methods have created misleading results, urging us to reconsider if our resources could be better spent on prevention, treatment, and recovery initiatives.
This episode also dives into the ongoing efforts surrounding marijuana rescheduling, emphasizing the importance of public involvement in shaping drug policy. Stay informed and engaged by visiting learnaboutsam.org and thedrugreport.org for more details and twice-weekly updates. Don't miss this essential conversation that cuts through the noise to propose more effective approaches to today's drug policy challenges.
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Yes or no? Do you believe nicotine is not addictive? I believe nicotine is not addictive. Yes, congressman, cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction. I don't believe that nicotine for our products are addictive. I believe nicotine is not addictive. I believe that nicotine is not addictive. I believe that nicotine is not addictive. Hello everyone, this is Luke Neferatos. I'm your host of the TDR podcast. Hello everyone, this is Luke Neferatos. I'm your host of the TDR podcast. Special thanks to SAM Smart Approaches to Marijuana, as well as FDPS, the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, who make this podcast possible.
Speaker 1:And today, you know we've got a lot of different news items happening in drug policy this week and there's a few that I really wanted to make sure we hit on. So the first two things I want to talk about, two stories really driving what's happening in the news right now as relates to drug policy, are just kind of I think there's a lot of misinformation out there and just kind of misunderstandings of the data that are out there, and so the first one is this is a story we're getting a lot of questions about, a lot of questions about In Vermont. Vermont is going to be the third state in the country to test out injection sites, or what is very euphemistically called overdose prevention centers, and so you know. Basically what happened in Vermont was the legislature passed this bill to allow an injection site in Burlington using opioid settlement dollars. Governor Phil Scott vetoed that and then they overrode his veto. So this will move forward in Vermont here over the next couple of years and they are following suit after. Rhode Island is expected to introduce theirs in Providence this summer, and New York City has had theirs for about a year or so, has had an injection site there, has had theirs for about a year or so, has had an injection site there, and so basically, this push for injection sites is based on this idea that we can make drug use safe.
Speaker 1:And the fact is we cannot make drug use safe. It's interesting. You look at the data and there's very limited data. There's not very good research justifying these sites. At this point, and I think that's one of our biggest concerns, is that we need to have a lot more research done on the sites. There are some in British Columbia, for example, that have been going for a couple of decades now and they have not been successful in reducing their overdose mortality rates in British Columbia using this extreme model, but we should continue to look at that and see what the evidence shows as far as public safety, which right now, the early information shows it makes surrounding neighborhoods more dangerous. There's a lot of mixed results there that are being debated, but this idea that we can make drug use safe, that we can save lives by supplying people with what Canada calls a safe supply of drugs, what that ends up doing is actually allowing big pharma to step in even more state-sanctioned drug dealing essentially, which is exactly what's happening in Canada, where the pharmaceutical industries and profit motives come into play under this supposed notion of saving lives, and so I think it's really important that we remember that.
Speaker 1:You know, first of all, the evidence is not overwhelming that this is a successful solution to the drug addiction crisis, to the opioid crisis. If you look at British Columbia, where they've had them pretty much the longest, it has not been a solution, so I don't think we should look at it as a catch-all. And number two, we're just not seeing enough on what this does in terms of public safety for communities that allow this, and I think that's probably a strong concern that Governor Scott led him to veto it in Vermont, but you know we is. You know, two million dollars, which is what they're proposing to spend in Vermont on these, on this injection site. Is two million dollars best spent there, with a very small niche of the population that possibly could benefit from an injection site? Or is two million dollars better spent on something related to prevention, treatment or recovery, where we know that the economic and safety and health benefit is gigantic for dollars that are spent in those areas, and I think that's a critical question in terms of the prioritization of funding that's happening there.
Speaker 1:The second story that we're hearing a little bit more about is the recent release of the Colorado Healthy Kids Survey data looking at up to 2023 kids' marijuana use trends, among other drug use trends, and so we're going to be putting out a document in the next couple of weeks fully analyzing and explaining to the public what goes into this survey. But there's a lot of misinformation coming out on the heels of this announcement, so there are people saying that you know Colorado's youth marijuana use rate is below the national average, that Colorado has successfully shown you can legalize marijuana and it doesn't impact kids. None of that is true. First of all, the survey document itself. You can go to CDPHE their website and look at the survey yourself. It says it is only representative of the regions that participated, and more than 20% of Colorado's regions did not participate in this study. They didn't submit enough data to be included as representative, so it, by definition, is not representative of statewide youth use of marijuana trends. So full stop the hyperbole out. There is just not true.
Speaker 1:Second, there's a number of other findings we have that I'll let the document do the talking. But you also see that they changed the way the data was collected and the regions that they were collecting data from in 2021. And that has continued. So the trend from 2014, when legalization went live, to 2021 is different from the trend from 2021 to today because the data and the collection changed, as well as the regions participating changed. So there's a number of limitations with this survey just right out of the gate, and so you know essentially all of the claims made that you're seeing out there that Colorado's youth are doing better, not accurate. Anecdotally speaking, we know from places like Boulder, where we're seeing a lot of now action being taken to try to eliminate at the local level, at the city level in Boulder, these high-potency concentrates because the schools there are complaining about rising issues with marijuana use in the schools. Because the schools there are complaining about rising issues with marijuana use in the schools. We also know that the prevalence of heavier use of marijuana among youth that has increased in Colorado as well, as this survey talks about a few places like Denver County, for example, saw a slight uptick in youth use as well as vaping increases. But again, none of this can be generalized to being representative of the entire state, and what we'll be putting out actually looks at some of the data that was submitted from those regions that were not included in this report and you can see that those regions saw very substantial increases. So, very important, we understand what we're working with there. Again, sam will be putting out a document and possibly an op-ed on this subject in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1:The final topic you know there was a lot of discussion last week about Maryland Governor Wes Moore's pardons of marijuana. He pardoned more than 150,000 marijuana possession records and expunged them and you know we came out and, you know, endorsed that position. Sam has always supported the decriminalization of low-level possession of marijuana, but it was really important. Something nobody talked about is that the state of Maryland acknowledged in the reporting that this, these pardons, did not set anyone free from prison, because not a single person is in Maryland prison for marijuana possession, and I think that's extremely surprising for most people, based on the perception that there's just millions of people languishing in prison just for having marijuana on their person. Not a single person in Maryland is in prison for marijuana possession.
Speaker 1:I thought that was very interesting and it goes to the fact that you can this decision to decriminalize. You can decriminalize marijuana possession. You can address some of these social justice concerns without legalizing marijuana, and in fact, quite the reverse with what happened in Maryland, where they have had legalization of recreational marijuana and an industry reaping millions of dollars in profits for the last two years, and then only now are we seeing a push to decriminalize and expunge small level records, and so I think that goes to show that profits came first and social justice came second when it came to this decision. So again, that kind of gets at the false dichotomy of what we frequently talk about at SAM, which is, again, you can have social justice reform without creating an addiction for profit industry. So Maryland's governor showed this by doing this. We think it was much too late to be making this decision, but good for him.
Speaker 1:But again, it's really important we speak the truth in terms of what the data show, which is that there are a very small number of people in this country who are in prison just for marijuana possession.
Speaker 1:It is very frequently that there's trafficking involved, there's cartels or gang activity involved or other forms of crime involved that leads to incarceration, and it's not just kind of this victimless crime. That, I think, is a perception that's out there. So those are three, I think, really key drug policy topics going on that are being discussed and debated this week, whether at the state level or at the federal level. We continue to work on the rescheduling issue, and so for those of you who want to get more educated on marijuana rescheduling, you can check out our website, learnaboutsamorg. It's the first item on the slider. You can get educated and also submit your public comment for marijuana rescheduling, and obviously we would encourage you to oppose that, but you can check out all of the information we have there. So with that, I hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful start to their week and please check out thedrugreportorg so you can sign up for our twice-weekly emails and get more information, more news, on what's going on, as well as our websites learnaboutsamorg and gooddrugpolicyorg. Thank you so much.