Dear Editor,
I have just finished viewing an episode of the programme ‘Changing Course’ which was focused on preventing youth marijuana use. I wish to first state that I am not a drug user and in my time as a teacher I have always encouraged my students to avoid drugs. However, the tactics used by the ‘Changing Course’ programme were counter-productive. They twisted facts and even misrepresented marijuana to create an image of false danger.
For instance, they stated that medical marijuana could not cure anything, only relieve the symptoms in a few patients, and that the downside to that was a higher rate for cancer. They ignore the fact that 16 states in the USA have allowed medical marijuana so far, serving over half a million registered patients with very real symptoms. The common cold has no cure, so cold medicine can only relieve the symptoms, but it is still medicine, is it not? Marijuana patients typically have chronic or terminal disease like bowel cancer or arthritis and pain relief is just as important as a cure to them. Also, the cancer risk that ‘Changing Course’ cites is small and also unclear. They are exaggerating to deceive.
If you want to be an effective drug educator, you cannot condone or practise deception. Work with the facts and make an honest case.
Yet, ‘Changing Course’ had other falsehoods to sneak in. They mentioned that people who start using marijuana as teens are more likely to show symptoms of depression as adults, implying that marijuana causes depression. Yet, they ignore the fact that adults with depression were most likely teens with depression and teens with depression are more likely to use… wait, they didn’t ignore it. Because five minutes later the presenter did in fact say that teens with depression are more likely to use marijuana, which reverses the cause and effect she had previously tried to establish.
The truth is that some research suggests depression is a cause of marijuana use, not a result of it.
In a blatant disregard for all kinds of facts and reality, the presenter then went on to say that marijuana was just as dangerous as cocaine. When I hear of someone dying from a marijuana overdose, maybe I’ll consider her argument.
Another case of fear-mongering by the presenter was when she mentioned that the THC levels in modern marijuana are higher and thus more addictive. THC is not in itself a particularly dangerous substance, (and is not regarded as addictive by many researchers) so its concentration is not relevant. Most of the physical danger of marijuana comes from the smoke and the higher levels of THC could mean that you inhale less smoke for the same effect.
Surprisingly, the presenters kept asking the viewers to go online and research these things for themselves. A simple Google search would turn up many points of contradiction of the programme’s supposed facts. And that is exactly why the tactics of the programme are deplorable. Most of what they had to say was true, sound, information, such as marijuana reducing the sex drive and pregnant women needing to avoid marijuana and marijuana stressing the heart.
Yet, any teenager can jump on their cellphone’s internet and spot the falsehoods I have just pointed out and then ‘Changing Course’ loses all credibility with that teen, even for the things where they are right.
Drugs are unsafe for teens. We do not need to misrepresent the facts to them to prove this. This makes them not trust us or our motives.
Yours faithfully,
Imam Baksh