Opinion: Two cannabis bills detrimental to public health and food safety

Dr. Lynn Silver  a pediatrician and director of Getting it Right from the Start – Advancing Public Health & Equity in Cannabis Policy, and Senior Advisor at the Public Health writes for CAL Matters

Legalizing cannabis was supposed to be about social justice. About ending mass incarceration of people of color for possessing a small amount of marijuana. About safer legal access.

But there are many things legalization should not be about. It should not be about initiating and hooking more kids, or adding neurologically active and psychoactive substances to our food.

Yet all these things are happening. The cannabis lobbyists are no longer off-the-grid farmers from the Emerald Triangle. They are Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies and Constellation, a major alcohol company. The halls of our state Capitol are replete with cannabis and hemp lobbyists successfully selling their goods.

As this legislative session winds down, at least two dangerous cannabis and hemp-related bills are moving forward.

Assembly Bill 1302, which recently passed by one vote, will assure that our kids grow up seeing billboards for cannabis, just as I grew up with the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel. When we legalized cannabis, Proposition 64 promised that California would have stringent protections for children, and prohibited billboards. The state turned around and allowed them through regulation. Angered San Luis Obispo parents sued, and this year the courts concurred that the regulation violated Prop. 64’s intent to protect children.

AB 1302, introduced by Assemblymember Bill Quirk, a Democrat from Hayward, will make those billboards OK, while a dozen other states effectively prohibit cannabis billboards. Companies use billboards because they work. Research confirms they increase interest in and use of unhealthy products by youth. One study found increased cannabis use and dependency in teen cannabis users exposed to billboards after legalization in six states. Gov. Gavin Newsom should veto this bill that will expose kids to cannabis ads.

Read her full piece at  https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/09/two-cannabis-bills-detrimental-to-public-health-and-food-safety/

 

Dr. Lynn Silver, a pediatrician, researcher and public health advocate, is Senior Advisor at the Public Health Institute and Clinical Professor at University of California San Francisco. She focuses on policies to prevent noncommunicable disease, its risk factors and inequitable impact. Silver was Assistant Health Commissioner of New York City under Mayor Bloomberg, leading innovative policy work such as the nation’s first trans fat ban, calorie labeling law and the National Salt Reduction Initiative and supported innovative tobacco control policies and programs.  She served as Health Officer for Sonoma County, California. She founded and co-chairs the California Alliance for Funding Prevention. At the Public Health Institute (PHI) she has worked on the Berkeley coalition that lead the nation’s first successful soda tax effort, and collaborated on soda tax campaigns in other cities and states. She recently completed evaluation of the Berkeley soda tax and is evaluating San Francisco’s first of its kind warning label for SSB advertising, as well as researching other regulatory policy issues in Latin America. Her interest in local marijuana regulation arose from her experience as a public health official  and belief that more public health oriented measures are needed now to protect against youth and problem use in the setting of a rapidly expanding new legal industry for a  product with significant harms. She received her MD and MPH degrees and pediatric training from the Johns Hopkins University and was previously visiting scholar at the Karolinska Institute.

Read more about her and the organisation at  https://gettingitrightfromthestart.org/about/

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