Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders has made some waves on the topic of marijuana. First, in the Democratic Presidential Debate, he said he would vote in favor of legalizing marijuana if it were on the ballot in Vermont. More recently, he announced that as President, he would push removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances […]
The one area of common ground I had with Paul McCarrier and his group Legalize Maine was that we both agreed that Big Marijuana (aka Marijuana Policy Project; aka Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol) would be bad for Maine. Certainly, we parted ways on the reasons why we didn’t want Big Marijuana here. I […]
Recently, a new study was published in JAMA Psychiatry which details how marijuana use has doubled in the last decade. Over the last ten years, we have seen the proliferation of states passing marijuana medicine by legislation, along with the handful of states legalizing retail marijuana. At the outset when Project SAM (Smart Approaches to […]
Earlier this month, the Maine Legislative Information Office released the list of bill titles the Legislative Council will be considering for the upcoming short session. In all, there are 38 pages of bill proposals. This is a big event in my world as a substance abuse prevention professional, as without fail, there are always many […]
Last week I posted this article talking about how moving to a recovery-oriented approach to substance abuse can also be a form of economic development. In particular, I posit that employers implementing hiring programs for people in recovery would be one such strategy. Lo and behold, there are indeed companies out there starting to do […]
A newly released report in Colorado doesn’t give marijuana legalization many positive marks. In fact, it points to a troubling 32-percent increase in marijuana-related traffic deaths in just one year from 2013, with a 92 percent increase from 2010 to 2014. What’s more, drug-related suspensions and expulsions increased 40 percent between school years 2008-2009 and […]
This week I’ve begun a transition professionally as I prepare to end my current role as Substance Abuse and Tobacco Prevention Manager at Healthy Androscoggin and begin my new role as the Director of Operations at AdCare Educational Institute of Maine, Inc. As transitions in life tend to go, they bring up a period of […]
Maine is not the only state facing likely marijuana legalization ballot initiatives. Indeed this year in 2015, voters in Ohio will be voting on an initiative to legalize marijuana in their state. The pro-pot group that is behind that initiative is ResponsibleOhio, and this week they unveiled a new mascot for their initiative. Buddie. Here […]
Tuesday, I was fortunate to have been invited by my friends at the Bangor Public Health Substance Abuse Task Force to a meeting they organized with Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli. This followed the drug strategy round table featuring Mr. Botticelli and called together by Senator Angus King. While the round […]
This statement may not be terribly shocking, but I have some issues with medical marijuana. I could go on and on about the reports that come out on a regular basis proving that medical marijuana has been based on anything but reputable science. (It’s interesting that when this is pointed out that the reaction of […]
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