Letter: Legalizing recreational pot puts lives in danger

Posted 5/11/21

To the editor:

What is the most pressing struggle that youth face in today’s world? This is a difficult question but there is a common theme in everyone's answers. The struggle of making it …

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Letter: Legalizing recreational pot puts lives in danger

Posted

To the editor:

What is the most pressing struggle that youth face in today’s world? This is a difficult question but there is a common theme in everyone's answers. The struggle of making it through a day, especially in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. 

Twenty-three percent of high schoolers report using marijuana in the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Fourteen percent of high schoolers in Rhode Island also report seriously contemplating suicide at some point in the past twelve months. The scariest part about both of these statistics is that they are closely linked.

Most surveys show that youth identify substance use as dangerous and even still nearly one in four youth regularly use marijuana. What message is our government sending to youth by making recreational use legal? How can anyone say that our elected officials have youths best interest in mind when making legislative decisions? Who benefits from this decision? Who suffers from this decision? The answer to this last question is easy. Youth suffer the most, for several different reasons.

Marijuana is a gateway drug, anyone that tells you differently isn’t in a healthy relationship with the truth. They are lying. The way the adolescent brain develops makes using any substances extremely dangerous now, and in the future. The frontal lobe, the part of the brain that is in key developmental stages during the teenage years, is responsible for some of the most important brain processes. Coping mechanisms, decision-making, executive functioning and our ability to enjoy things in life. 

By using substances we are forever damaging our frontal lobe. The normalization of “experimenting” with substances in the teenage years is killing people every single day. Not just from overdoses, but from suicide. If we want to get serious about bringing a stop to suicide we have to get serious about bringing a stop to youth substance use. By supporting the recreational use of marijuana you aren’t serious about the future of the youth, you aren’t serious about me.

If marijuana becomes legal for adults will dealers just decide to pack up and move on to a new profession? No. Who will be their new customers? Me. My friends. My younger siblings. This will increase access for youth to not only marijuana but also many other substances. Do you want to be responsible for this? Substance dependence is a mental illness, a mental illness that can be prevented, but only if we do what's right. Only if you stand up and protect me, protect my future.

A study by (The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services) showed that people who used alcohol or substances were more likely to make a suicide attempt. It also stated that depression and substance use were the most common risk factors for suicide. Is this a world that you want? As a country that wants to keep its citizens safe, do you think this is the way to do it? 

By putting marijuana on the streets you are putting many lives in danger. If you think the positives outweigh the negative when it comes to this, then go ahead. But you are wrong. And you won’t be the one to suffer, I will. Thanks.

Calvin Lucenti

Oliver Tibbetts

George Smith

Jay Humm

Be Great For Nate’s Substance Use Prevention Team

Portsmouth

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.