cannabisnews.com: Teenager Recalls Spell Marijuana Cast Over Her





Teenager Recalls Spell Marijuana Cast Over Her
Posted by CN Staff on August 07, 2003 at 08:57:13 PT
By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 
Maggie didn't plan to smoke marijuana. But she invited a friend to sleep over one night, and the friend showed up with some pot, a little something from her older sister.Maggie was 14 years old. Her parents hadn't warned her about drugs except to say, "Don't do them," words that had no impact. If she'd had any drug education in school, it hadn't stuck with her.
Looking back now at age 18, after five months of a 10-month residential drug treatment program at the Cornell Abraxas Center for Adolescent Females, she realizes that she really didn't know anything about marijuana."I wanted to fit in with everybody," said Maggie, who lives in the Pittsburgh area. "I just started experimenting. And I had some other family problems, and I thought it could help me."That's just the kind of experience that is putting representatives of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, part of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, on the road in 24 cities this summer, trying to fight the pop-culture image of marijuana as a drug that's relatively harmless.The agency did a study a year and a half ago showing that of the marijuana references in the news, only 6 percent dealt with negative impacts. It found little information about studies showing that today's marijuana is seven to 14 times more potent than what was available at Woodstock. Or that recent research into brain development shows that marijuana can cause bigger problems for teenagers than originally thought.Or that 38 percent of Pennsylvania youths 12 to 17 who entered drug treatment centers in 2001 had a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependency."There are too many people who think of it as a rite of passage," Marianne Turkal, assistant program director for the Cornell Abraxas program Maggie attends, said during yesterday's program in Pittsburgh. "When you've come to accept that everybody does it, it's a rite of passage, you're basically lost."Ralph Tarter, the director of the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research at the University of Pittsburgh, stressed that he didn't want to exaggerate the addictiveness of marijuana. Between 10 percent and 20 percent of users will become addicted, he said, adding that the number is comparable to the number of cigarette smokers who eventually develop lung cancer."And that's not to say that the intermediate stages are irrelevant," he said.Regular marijuana use, he said, affects the frontal lobes of the brain and "damages the ability to meet challenges in everyday society," something he believes is particularly dangerous in a high-tech society. It can reduce the efficiency of the immune system and induce panic attacks, which can occur when the brain loses the ability to evaluate risks. There are some negative effects on the reproductive and endocrine systems, as well.Marijuana addiction, Turkal said, is particularly subtle, unlike cocaine or heroin. When deprived of marijuana, addicts don't shake or throw up or walk around with bloodshot eyes. But not only does it lead to trying strong drugs, it can cause problems on its own."Nobody volunteers for addiction," Turkal said. "It creeps up on you."Which is exactly what happened to Maggie.Six months after her first hit of marijuana, she was using pills and beginning to try heroin. She quit her job, and with a "good" cut of marijuana costing about $50 (and lasting only a few hours), she began stealing to support her habit. Usually calm, she became angry.She slept a lot. Stayed home from school "sick" more often. Stayed out late.Sometimes when she was with her friends, they would say, "Let's try to stay sober." They always failed, she said, unable to find something else interesting to do. "Especially in the winter," she said. "I always relapsed in the winter."Her grades dropped. Two teachers pulled her aside after class, asking first if there were anything she wanted to talk about and then, flat out, "Are you on drugs?"Maggie responded, "Are you crazy?" and left the discussions believing she had tricked the teachers."I thought I was slick," she said. "I thought I wasn't obvious. I think deep down, I knew it was obvious. But I was in denial. I got real defensive."Repeated attempts from her parents to stop her drug use failed. Last summer, after two years of use, she went to a 30-day boot camp, which didn't work. Then she attended three outpatient rehabilitation programs, none of which helped, either, because she continued to use drugs on the program's off days. "It was more like aftercare," she said.Only now, in the residential program, does Maggie believe she is truly making progress. And she's thinking about her addiction and how she could have avoided it.More education is primary -- and not just from school lectures. Maggie thinks if more musical groups were making it a point to mention the dangers of marijuana, and if her parents had provided her with more specifics at a younger age, she would have better prepared to deal when she was offered the pot."We tend in this country to concentrate on one drug at a time," Turkal said. "Others came to the forefront after the '70s and the '80s, and now the numbers show that marijuana is up."Maggie wasn't a member of any organized school groups or athletic teams, either. "I think that would have helped me," she said. "I didn't feel like I fit in."Once she tried drugs, she said, there was little anyone could do."Once I started, I didn't care what my parents had to say," she said. "They had to take action."After treatment, however, Maggie better appreciates her parents, which is something the government campaign wants to bring to the forefront. Parents, the commercials and brochures stress, can be the "anti-drug" -- what keeps teenagers sober.Maggie believes it. She said of her parents, "I think they're my only true friends."Newshawk: Paul Armentano - http://www.norml.org/Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)Author: Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff WriterPublished: Thursday, August 07, 2003Copyright: 2003 PG PublishingContact: letters post-gazette.comWebsite: http://www.post-gazette.com/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #38 posted by Big Trees on August 09, 2003 at 07:31:42 PT
on more thing...
I sugggest we all write and give our storys to Lori and see if we get the same print....
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #37 posted by Big Trees on August 09, 2003 at 07:28:31 PT
well here is her reply to my e-mail to her....
Feel free to post you comments about this.Subject:	How can you get away with such garabage reporting anyway?
 I did up a reply of my own as well as pasting may of your replys below. Thanks Hello Mr. so and so,Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response. I wanted to
clear up a few misconceptions. The article is not intended to be an overall
look at marijuana use. I was assigned yesterday to attend the forum and
write about what happened there. I allowed the people who spoke to tell
their stories and give their opinions -- just as I would have done at any
forum, on any topic. I noted the sponsor (the government) and its reason for
hosting the forum. Again, I would have done the same thing for any group,
NORML or whatever.Maggie told her story. She never claimed to speak for everyone. Had you been
the featured speaker at a forum, I would have allowed you to tell your story
in the same way.Lori
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #36 posted by freedom fighter on August 08, 2003 at 23:46:03 PT
Dang it! R.Cowan!
Now if Johnny pee Walters would just register here and we all have a ball!:)Actually, I want to take the time to say..Thanks for explaining what "yellow journalism" is about..pazff
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #35 posted by SoberStoner on August 08, 2003 at 15:44:48 PT
Well, the article is trash but the comments rock!
And it's a great pleasure to see a celebrity in our midst:)I hope we get to see more of you around Mr Cowan..your words are an inspiration to many of us here.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #34 posted by FoM on August 08, 2003 at 14:41:22 PT
Thank You delariand 
I hope we will see the day when Cannabis is finally free. I would love to see those headlines! That's what it's all about! I'll borrow some words from Neil Young's song Bandit from his Greendale Tour.Someday you'll find everything you're looking for, yeah!Someday we will find liberty for Cannabis. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #33 posted by delariand on August 08, 2003 at 14:10:52 PT
And we appreciate you twice as much FoM
This site is awesome, and I hope one day you will be able to post the headline "Cannabis legalized across America"
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #32 posted by FoM on August 08, 2003 at 12:51:50 PT
A Small Comment
I don't know if you all know how nice it is for me to be able to go away from the computer ( mowing ) and come back and enjoy reading the comments. When Richard Cowan registered last night I was so happy I almost wanted to go guess who registered but I kept it to myself. That was hard. I appreciate all the efforts from everyone more then you all could possibly know. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #31 posted by kaptinemo on August 08, 2003 at 12:38:10 PT:
Many thanks for your efforts, Mr. C
And it's good to see you here; do stop by again if you get the chance! :)
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #30 posted by delariand on August 08, 2003 at 10:46:24 PT
Dan B
Alright, I'm suing you for copyright infringement!;)No worries, this is a forum to express your opinion, my post was also a rehash of many previously stated ideas, but sometimes you just need to get something out of your head and into the world, you know?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #29 posted by FoM on August 08, 2003 at 09:49:25 PT
Thank You Mr. Cowan
Thank you for sharing your letter with us.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #28 posted by RCCowan on August 08, 2003 at 09:36:42 PT:
The spell reefer madness cast over her 
I sent the following to the Editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, regarding: Teenager recalls spell marijuana cast over her: There are numerous problems with the article by Lori Shontz. First, she says, “today's marijuana is seven to 14 times more potent than what was available at Woodstock.”In fact, there is no data on marijuana potency from the 1960s. The data from the 1970s is problematic, but according to the US government’s own data, the average THC level in 1983 was 3.34%. If there was a dramatic increase in the 1970s, no one has explained why. In any case, 10 years later, in 1993, the average was virtually the same. Then in 2002, according to the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project, the non-normalized average potency of cannabis seizures had risen to 6.19%. Because prohibition creates an incentive for increasing the potency of contraband, there has been a major increase in domestic indoor growing from seeds selected for higher THC levels during the last few years, but the average THC level has not even doubled, much less increased 7 to 14 fold. Moreover, high potency marijuana makes up a very small part of the market, and is very expensive, so it is unlikely that most teens would be using it. In any case, there is no evidence that it is more dangerous.
(For more information, see Slate magazine, The Myth of Potent Pot, at http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074151) 
 
Second, the statement that “38 percent of Pennsylvania youths 12 to 17 who entered drug treatment centers in 2001 had a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependency” is also misleading. Marijuana is by far the most commonly used illicit drug, and teens arrested for possessing marijuana are often sent to “treatment” whether they need it or not. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency’s own web site says, “By 1999, more than half of all adolescent marijuana admissions were referred through the criminal justice system. Adolescent marijuana admissions through the criminal justice system increased at a higher rate than admissions through other sources.” 
From http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/2k2/YouthMJtx/YouthMJtx.cfm
SAMHSA also explains, “Persons who received specialty treatment in the past year but did not meet the criteria for dependence or abuse were included in the definition of treatment need because it was assumed that if a person received treatment, he or she probably needed it at some point in the past year.
From http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/Dependence/appendixc.htmIn other words, if you were sent to “treatment” by the courts or school or by anyone else without a diagnosis of “dependence or abuse”, you must need treatment even though you don’t otherwise “meet the criteria for dependence or abuse.” By definition. Third, the claim that “between 10 percent and 20 percent of users will become addicted” is contradicted by all of the data and by common sense observation. At least 80 million Americans have smoked marijuana. Over 20 million have smoked in the last year. Are there really four million “marijuana addicts” out there? Almost half of all American high school seniors have smoked marijuana at some point. Are five to ten percent of high school seniors really “marijuana addicts?”The Dutch experience suggests that perhaps one percent of users have problems.Moreover, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse: “Treatment programs directed specifically at marijuana abuse are rare, partly because many individuals who use marijuana do so in combination with other drugs, such as cocaine and alcohol. However, with more people now seeking help specifically to control marijuana abuse, research has sharpened its focus on ways to overcome problems associated with abuse of this drug.One study suggests that brief treatment, consisting of just two individual sessions with a trained therapist, can reduce marijuana use by 70 percent. In these 90-minute individual sessions, the therapist uses motivational interviewing techniques, which reinforce patients' desires to quit, and discusses strategies that patients can use to avoid or overcome the temptation to use marijuana. This brief approach was found to be as effective as a much longer group therapy.” 
From http://www.drugabuse.gov/ResearchReports/Marijuana/Marijuana5.html#treatments. Does this sound like a serious problem?
 
No, marijuana is not “harmless,” especially not for kids, but neither is marijuana prohibition, and neither is prohibitionist propaganda masquerading as journalism.Richard Cowan
Cowan MarijuanaNews.com  
Teenager recalls spell marijuana cast over her 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #27 posted by afterburner on August 08, 2003 at 07:09:58 PT:
No Problemo, DanB
I read all the posts and still thought your post was well-said. Especially the n=1 comparison. And speaking of Woodstock, people weren't just smoking pot. There was also hash, LSD, and more. "Take this with however many grains of salt you may wish--that the brown acid that is circulating around this is not especially good, but it's your trip.... Take care of each other."ego transcendence follows ego destruction, a thousand points of light shine bright in the night.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #26 posted by Jose Melendez on August 08, 2003 at 05:32:12 PT
LEAP Member Speaks Out
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1193/a07.html?397
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #25 posted by Dan B on August 08, 2003 at 03:23:29 PT
delariand, Lehder, kaptinemo, ben
Looks like we are roughly on the same page. Sorry for the reiteration of what all of you said in one way or another. I need to start reading the posts before posting one myself.Also, please pardon the typos. I make many, and I thought I had caught all of them. New keyboard, don'tcha know.Dan B
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #24 posted by Dan B on August 08, 2003 at 03:05:39 PT
Grow Up
Isn't it interesting that when we claim that marijuana has medicinal benefits, basing that assertion on thousands (if not millions) of people whose personal experiences have shown it to be true (studies of n=1), they say that such evidence is not true evidence because it was not part of a controlled study, but when they choose to show how one stupid girl who had somehow managed to get to the ripe old age of fourteen without anyone ever speaking to her about the difference between marijuana and . . . oh, say HEROIN . . . and claim that such a case is normal (remember, we are still dealing with n=1, and that only if they are telling the truth about this girl's experience, which I sincerely doubt), suddenly n=1 is a good fit for evidence of their claims? The hypocrisy is astoundingly blatant.And, how about this gem:"The agency did a study a year and a half ago showing that of the marijuana references in the news, only 6 percent dealt with negative impacts. It found little information about studies showing that today's marijuana is seven to 14 times more potent than what was available at Woodstock. Or that recent research into brain development shows that marijuana can cause bigger problems for teenagers than originally thought."Would that such a study were accurate. I long for the days when only 6% of all articles spout this disinformation, and that is what it amounts to: disinformation (or, more precisely, incomplete information, which is just as misleading as outright lies). For starters, the weed at Woodstock has never been (nor ever will be) tested for potency, so any comparison to such weed is based on outright lies. Second, the "recent research" line is as old as the hills, and while it is true that such research exists, it is also true that such research was conducted only when the government declared it to be sufficiently biased against marijuana to warrant government funding. In addition, notice he litle word "can," which means the same thing as "might" in this context, rendering the entire statement meaningless.Here's another one:"Sometimes when she was with her friends, they would say, 'Let's try to stay sober.' They always failed, she said, unable to find something else interesting to do. 'Especially in the winter,' she said. 'I always relapsed in the winter.'"So, she wanted to stop smoking weed, but she just couldn't do it because of her friends? Why not find other friends to hang out with? Why was this particular batch of "friends" so hooked on getting high to the exclusion of everything else? "Unable to find something else to do" sounds like a copout to me. And, did they just happen to always have cannabis lying around, even when they were "trying" to "stay sober"? What a load of crap. There was no "trying" about it. The problem with "addiction" programs is that they convince people who buy into them that they are powerless over their addictions. Yes, with that attitude they are, but that isn't the fault of the drug. It's the fault of the addiction "specialist" who declares it to be true. Centers for addiction need a complete housecleaning of all people who think it is their job to remove personal responsibility from the equation. If you become addicted, it is because you made bad decision after bad decision to get to that point. Deal with it from that angle; don't try to lay blame on the substance. The problem isn't the substance; the problem is lack of self control.It is my firm belief that if people would simply grow up and take responsibility for their own actions, rather than blaming "drugs" or "friends" or some other group of people, the world would be a much happier place. Of course, then we would have no need for government intrusion into our personal decisions. Gee, what a novel concept.Dan B
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #23 posted by delariand on August 08, 2003 at 00:58:02 PT
clarification
when typing late, proofread... to clarify the below post, i was saying that maggie most likely never appreciated her parents before using marijuana, and to claim that she suddenly changed after that First Deadly Hit of the Loco Weed is just ridiculous. people with simple minds who make simple cause/effect relationships out of complex situations rarely arrive at a correct solution
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #22 posted by delariand on August 08, 2003 at 00:51:28 PT
one last thing...
notice the last few lines in the article... Once she tried drugs, she said, there was little anyone could do."Once I started, I didn't care what my parents had to say," she said. "They had to take action."After treatment, however, Maggie better appreciates her parents, which is something the government campaign wants to bring to the forefront. Parents, the commercials and brochures stress, can be the "anti-drug" -- what keeps teenagers sober.Maggie believes it. She said of her parents, "I think they're my only true friends."Aha! The ONE BIG LIE is exposed clearly for all to see. You expect me to believe that an American teenager appreciated and respected her parents? I'm sorry, but that just does not happen. How bout a different story? Our dear friend Maggie _never_ appreciated her parents, and her smoking marijuana was just a coincidental choice she made. She also chose to do all her other drugs, and through all of this she naturally still didn't appreciate her parents. Then, she learns the error of her ways, _appreciates her parents_, stops using drugs, and things are peachy.So... was the problem the drug use? Or was the problem a lack of parental appreciation, and a symptom was drug use?Imagine having some medical condition, which slowly eats away at your internal organs unless treated, and also gives you headaches. Now, if your doctor treates your headaches with painkillers, the problem never goes away, and you eventually die. If your doctor treates the actual disease, not only do your headaches go away, but you live.See any parallels? Society is screwed up, massively screwed up. But, just like it's easier for a doctor to throw pain pills at a problem than to do a real diagnosis, it's easier to throw drug users into jail than to fix society.I am so sick of the lies, but all this typing is just treading water. I feel like we're getting nowhere fast.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #21 posted by delariand on August 08, 2003 at 00:44:12 PT
"challenges"
Back then, marijuana "made white women have sex with negroes". Now, it "damages the frontal lobes of the brain" and "harms one's ability to deal with everyday challenges". Well, I can only speak from personal experience, but daily marijuana use hasn't had any effect at all on my ability to deal with my challenges. I don't know, maybe college life, a programming job with a fortune 500 company, and day to day social interaction with my family and friends aren't the kind of daily challenges this author was referring to.So, what kind of challenges do you mean? In our society today, it can be an everyday challenge to produce from one's body urine free of cannabinoids or their metabolites. I suppose in that sense, smoking marijuana really does make it difficult to deal with challenges. It also makes it difficult when someone is challenging you to a fight. Being stoned makes you so peaceable, you're liable to turn the aggressor down and walk away calmly. We can't have that!So, lets have a compromise. You stop challenging me to pee in a cup, and I'll stop challenging you to prove your baseless claims.Show me one study to prove this brain damage claim? Just one shred of real, scientific proof? Because I've got a whole big list of scientific proof to the contrary. In fact, lets start with the canadian senate report on marijuana, shall we? It's about 600 pages of hard evidence and expert testimonial recommending marijuana be legal for consumption to those of the age of 16 or older. Wow, can you believe it? The entire Canadian senate wants to expose most of their citizens to frontal lobe damage! Boy, they sure must be dumb
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #20 posted by Mike on August 08, 2003 at 00:17:49 PT
hahahaha
**Regular marijuana use, he said, affects the frontal lobes of the brain and "damages the ability to meet challenges in everyday society**---And, being the root of satanic music, it will cause your white daughters to seek sexual relations with negroes.On a side note, if "drug users" are a minority percentage of the population, then it seems that Maggie is truly trying to fit in with the majority now.. even if being forced to. Reminds me of Cool Hand Luke "I've got my mind right, boss!"
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #19 posted by phil_debowl on August 07, 2003 at 15:36:46 PT
Contact info for author
(Lori Shontz can be reached at lshontz post-gazette.com or 412-263-1722.)Now i'm kinda antisocial and am not good at debating with people, but i would love it if one of our wonderful members that is good at this kinda thing would contact this person and post the results of the conversation/email. I'd be more than happy to be backup on a conference call :).
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #18 posted by john wayne on August 07, 2003 at 15:31:18 PT
didn't need to read beyond the headline
"Spell Marijuana Cast"Burn the witches!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #17 posted by goneposthole on August 07, 2003 at 15:14:42 PT
Run for your lives
My god in Himmelstein, marywanna is the devil incarnate. It has to be, it has gotta be... was this piece of trash written exclusively for cannabisnews? A person once wanted to try some cannabis that I had, so I obliged and gave the individual a few hits of some one hit wonder. The person came back a few minutes later and wondered aloud if they would be alright. The individual was genuinely concerned if the 'stone' were a permanent impairment of the individual's faculties. I calmed the fears of the individual by saying, "you'll be ok." That was that, and nothing more had to be said. Of course, the fears were due to the propaganda and scare tactics that had be fed ad infinitum for years in this 'free society.' If anything is dangerous, it is the inexcusable tactics used by prohibitionists. This needs to be reiterated: Louis Armstrong quelled and quashed all of the BS that surrounds the average cat in this society by singing 'It's a wonderful world'.It's a wonderful world, Maggie, find your place in the sun.
There is no need to fear a thing except for all of the deranged prohibitionists that are run amuck. Lori Schontz is one of them. Enlighten her; there really is hope for the prohibitionist even if they are classic bird brains. A dodo bird if there ever was one. See ya, prohibitionists, wouldn't wanna be ya! You're gonna get burned, too. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #16 posted by ben on August 07, 2003 at 15:05:33 PT
Blame the Weed
I believe its D.A.R.E that is to blame for her outcome because they never taught
her the diffrence between weed and herion da! She should have stuck to the weed instead of blameing the holy herb
for her herion habbit.Its so easy to see through this crap,
the editor must out for a promotion, and it must be easier
for the parents to say thier daughter had a weed problem instead of being herion junkie not as much stigma.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #15 posted by phil_debowl on August 07, 2003 at 14:45:41 PT
Burning of drug house
Sounds kinda like what the isrealies have been doing to the palestinians. Destroying all the houses of all the family members of alleged terrorists.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #14 posted by freedom fighter on August 07, 2003 at 14:19:16 PT
Casting the Spell!
Meanwhile,......DRUG HOUSE IN VINA SEIZED AND BURNED Law Enforcement Hoping To Send A Message To Others VINA - Thick, black smoke billowed from the old manufactured home as a wall of fire burst through the door and windows. As it burned, several area law enforcement officials stood outside, watching. This wasn't an accidental house fire. It was started deliberately. But there will not be an investigation. "Tonight, we're sending another message to those dealing drugs in Franklin County,'' said District Attorney John Pilati. "As far as your vehicle or property goes, if you use it for drug activity, plan to lose it as a result.'' Snippedd..............http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1188/a06.html?397What's next?Burn witches Burn withces!pazff
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #13 posted by E_Johnson on August 07, 2003 at 13:19:18 PT
This story is soft porn
Notice how they always assume that the parents are perfect human beings.It's cut from the same melodramatic anecdotal template as every other bit of soft teen porn that the Drug Warriors trot out to explain why so many children in this country are not growing up to become healthy adults.It's dramatically entertaining. Oooh a nasty girl gone good. An addicted slut, yanked from the edge by prohibitionists.
But they refuse to look to any real cause, because anti-marijuana porn funds their whole show.This girl's life is reduced completely to the issue of marijuana. They treat her like there isn't anything else to her or her mind or her soul or her problems in life or her issues with her family or school other than marijuana.This is like the Paxil article. Mom sues because her dysfunctional daughter wasn't helped by a drug. We don't even know what kind of home she was raised in. But as far as the press is concerned, we have an innocent mother, and a guilty drug.This is like the fuss they make over child abduction by a stranger. Yes this is horrific, but statistically speaking, the individual most likely to beat and rape and kill a child is the child's very own parent. But that's not sexy enough for the evening news. The number of child abuse cases clogging the child welfare courts every day is not sexy enough for the news media to fixate over.Pondering the number of children trapped in foster care is not as financially rewarding for the media as pandering the image of some nubile young girl, poised dramatically over a bong, with the public watching with bated breath to see whether or not she's going to take that hit.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #12 posted by FoM on August 07, 2003 at 12:33:22 PT
BGreen
Very good observation!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #11 posted by BGreen on August 07, 2003 at 12:10:30 PT
INTENTIONAL MISTAKE?
Six months after her first hit of marijuana, she was using pills and beginning to try heroin. She quit her job, and with a "good" cut of marijuana costing about $50 (and lasting only a few hours), she began stealing to support her habit. Usually calm, she became angry.The word "marijuana" was used (accidently?) for the word "heroin." The word "cut" applies ONLY to powder substances. Anybody that's made it all the way to rehab would know the correct vernacular for their habit.This "mistake" serves to vilify cannabis while taking the focus off of heroin, but the sleazy way this "mistake" was perpetrated will allow the author to just go "oops."The Rev. Bud Green
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on August 07, 2003 at 11:59:18 PT:
"Maggie" sounds like someone who 
needs more than a 'rehab' program:*"I wanted to fit in with everybody,"..."I just started experimenting...I had some other family problems...*Sound like emotional instability to you? Sure does to me. Possibly indicative of something much more deep-seated.*Maggie wasn't a member of any organized school groups or athletic teams, either. "I think that would have helped me,"..."I didn't feel like I fit in."*There's a sociological term for this: anomie.an·o·mie or an·o·my  ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-m)
n. 
Social instability caused by erosion of standards and values. 
Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals.Or simply put, not fitting in...but with what?At the risk of seeming simplistic, young people know in the back of their minds, without having to be told by demographers, that the world that their grandparents and parents knew, a world possessing some degree of stability afforded by secure employment and all that that entails, is gone forever. They know that there are less jobs around, and competition much fiercer for them. They can tell that things will not get any better in the foreseeable future, either; standards of living keep dropping, parents working two jobs when one breadwinner with one job could have taken care of the whole family 30 years ago - and the strains that that cause are ravaging families across the nation. Young people may lack life experiences, but don't sell their native intelligence short. They know things suck, and are getting suckier. So many engage in a sense of "Why bother?" that is disheartening, but all too understandable.But in the final analysis, "Maggie" simply doesn't want to admit to herself that she has a responsibility to herself. Period. She wants somebody else to 'take care of her' in perpetuity. The kind of mentality that supposedly once was common amongst professional Welfare scammers.Quit blaming the weed and get off your lazy arse, "Maggie". If I can hold down a highly technical job (and receive plenty of kudos and a recent raise for my endeavors) while being a nightly cannabis consumer, then maybe the prob is not with the weed, honey; the problem is YOU!  
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #9 posted by aolbites on August 07, 2003 at 11:23:19 PT
Bait and Switch!!
whats this?she isn't in rehab for pot. she did that other stuff for 1.5 YEARS she in rehab for H is my guess. 18-5months = 17.5 .. -.5 = 17 .. started at 14 .. wheres the other 1.5 years?oh yea she was doing drugs after treatment for that time.. so she was hooked on H for 3 years, and now needs residential care to ween her off the opiates.cannabis is just an excuse ... she also says "And I had some other family problems, and I thought it could help me."how would drugs help family problems? lets hear! [ha]"Six months after her first hit of marijuana, she was using pills and beginning to try heroin. She quit her job, and with a "good" cut of marijuana costing about $50 (and lasting only a few hours), she began stealing to support her habit. "Boy they sure love that bait and switch eh?and the great Truth Lie - This 38% is really addicted to staying out of jail right?:"Or that 38 percent of Pennsylvania youths 12 to 17 who entered drug treatment centers in 2001 had a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependency."
wow look at all the stars!!!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #8 posted by Lehder on August 07, 2003 at 11:17:07 PT
a most dishonorable author
observer maintains a web site that performs a computer tabulation of occurrences of the themes of drug war propaganda in news articles. Look it up. But don't try to run this article through it until he uprgades memory capacity.>>Six months after her first hit of marijuana, she was using pills and beginning to try heroin.
   She quit her job, and with a "good" cut of marijuana costing about $50 (and lasting only a
   few hours), she began stealing to support her habit. The inspirational movie about Maggie's tribulations and struggle to rebuild her shattered life will have to be shown in black and white because it's straight out of the mindset of a '50s era drug propagandist. I have never heard of a "cut" as a measure of marijuana, let alone a "good cut" or a "bad cut." (Are these Black expressions?) And the claim that $50 worth of marijuana would last an individual smoker only "a few hours" and that she would then need more so desperately that she had to steal is simply an impossibility. Such extreme addictive behavior might be descriptive of the most despeerate of crack addicts, but is totally alien to cannabis culture. It only reveals the author's utter lack of information and willingness to fabricate for this propaganda piece. All this was clear enough from the one absurd statement above; it was hardly necessay for the author to compound her folly with remarks about the frontal lobe, the immune system, the endocrine system, and the reproductive system.Maggie has real problems that existed prior to and independently of her marijuana use. Yet the article offers no background whatsoever about Maggie, her family relationships, her physical condition and health, legal problems if any, school problems, her family's income or social status - we know nothing at all about Maggie except what the author wants us to accept: she smoked marijuana, she has a cornucopia of unstated problems, marijuana caused all these problems. For example, the statement>>Sometimes when she was with her friends, they would say, "Let's try to stay sober."is made without any time reference. When did she begin drinking? A lot of background needs to be filled in here before arriving at any conclusions regarding Maggie's situation. It's most unlikely that she enjoyed anything close to a normal childhood prior to using marijuana, but that is of no import for the author's purpose here.The author has taken the story of a troubled girl and twisted it into a piece of drug war propaganda. Such a crass endeavor comes at a cost to everyone, including Maggie.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #7 posted by Petard on August 07, 2003 at 11:09:18 PT
Amazing Propaganda
The people who have never done any research, from experimentation to reading true science or anything other than the mainstream media, are so believing in this kind of stuff. I worked at a bank that used real cops for security, not rent-a-cops at all. Some of the rural suburban cops were so sheltered from reality they thought all potheads were rastas or hippies or anything but average people. They were shocked beyond belief to find pot on normal looking and functioning "successful" people. Others from the city force were more realistic about pot and other drugs, knew that a genuine cross section of people both used and abused drugs of all types usually without any "trafficking" involvement or solicitation of others to partake. It had nothing to do with smart vs. dumb, just exposure to info and experience.P.S.
Don't ya just love the way they slipped in cannabis and cancer? Equating # of arrestees (diagnosed addicts) to # of cancer cases. A leap the proportion of which Evil Kneivel would be proud of. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by delariand on August 07, 2003 at 10:55:42 PT
Sure, sure
This is just ridiculous. Why can't anyone own up to their mistakes these days. Some girl spends all her time smoking weed and goofing off in school, then when she turns 18 and is dumped unsuspecting and unprepared into the Real World, she goes crying to her mommy and to treatment for her problem with the EVIL WEED marijuana.Now, lets take a step back. Do you think maybe, just maybe, the problem is YOU? That marijuana you smoked didn't jump out of the earth, tie you up, burn itself into smoke and shoot down your lungs. You chose to smoke it and you chose to continue to smoke it. You chose to not only smoke it, but smoke it carelessly. You also chose to continue smoking it even when it seemed to be causing problems in your life, and in the life of your parents and others around you. How is any of that marijuana's fault? You are just a loser, even more so because you are too weak to own up to the fact.Myself and hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding American citizens smoke pot all the time, and we're all getting along with our lives just fine. Your problem isn't marijuana, your problem is YOU couldn't even handle something as weak as marijuana, and YOU were too immature/stupid to realize this fact and not use it, so to sum it up YOU screwed up. It's time to grow up, and be responsible.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by phil_debowl on August 07, 2003 at 10:21:59 PT
I'm gonna be sick
This is horrible. They forgot to mention that marijuana turns people into drug crazed killers. Oh wait, never mind, that's pretty much what they said in a roundabout way. I've seen alot of this crap coming outta pittsburgh. My best friend lives there and tells me it's horrible. The population is all either kids that live with their parents, or old totally uninformed people. It's sad.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by Arthropod on August 07, 2003 at 09:51:56 PT:
Absolut Bull
I think I was rather lucky with my timing. I started smoking cannabis when I had just turned 17. I was failing high school at the time out of sheer boredom (high school teaches almost nothing of real world value anymore) and a good friend of mine invited me over to smoke a bowl out of the blue a few days after my 17th birthday. A year and a half later, I graduated high school top of my class after enrolling in a culinary vocational program (I make great munchies =>) and am now enrolled in college for Computer networking. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but computers are a very difficult and mind engaging activity to anyone, let alone a "pothead" as the govt. calls me. Why is it that after I started smoking herb I started doing so much better in academics? Just a little thought for King Ashcroft to chew on.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by afterburner on August 07, 2003 at 09:51:33 PT:
The True Gateway.
Problems --> Addiction.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by John Tyler on August 07, 2003 at 09:47:38 PT
true or just more propaganda 
Is this true or a propaganda piece? Can't tell. Alcohol would work just as well in this story too. Anyway, kids shouldn't use stuff like this anyway. Everybody knows that. But, responsible adult use is another thing altogether. Just because one subgroup has a problem with a substance doesn't mean that that substance should be banned for use by others under penality of law.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by Virgil on August 07, 2003 at 09:37:48 PT
The demonization continues
part of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, on the road in 24 cities this summer, trying to fight the pop-culture image of marijuana as a drug that's relatively harmless.Well, here they are saying the ONDCP is out to distort truth, because herb is relatively harmless. Now you have to start your list of things to hold it up to. Take your pick. Oxycotin, Valium, Xanex, alcohol, cocaine, sugar water, meth, glue, cough syrup. To say that cannabis is relatively harmless is absolutely true although it is too broad of a statement to stop on. It is not a brain pill in one sentence to tell you about the effects of cannabis.Of course this is propaganda all the way and they use the human face approach. The truth is that this is all happening under prohibition with its honorous laws that get this person mandatory drug treatment and everything else plus cost of gold prices for her and everyone else with corruption and subverting of the Constititution thrown in for free. Okay, maybe not for free. Maybe for a billion dollars a week with $20 billion a year spent just on housing prisoners.The propaganda of the prostitute press has resorted to lies once again in this piece. The one source someone with an intellectual gear should read if they want to know about cannabis is the Canadian Senate Report of last August-
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/Committee_SenRep.asp?Language=E&Parl=37&Ses=1&comm_id=85In this report, they call for legalized use of cannabis for people ages 16 and up. It calls for freedom rather than control as the mission of government and laws and would have a lower age except that young people are still developing the brain and nervous system and everything else for that matter.This crap will not float around here.
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment