Last week the Oregonian published an article in which the author clearly promotes teen marijuana use. In the article "Oregonians smoke the second most marijuana in the U.S." the author Lizzy Acker states: "Oregon smokes the second most marijuana of any state in the United States. Guess who's No. 1? Yeah, it's Colorado. Don't worry, guys. We'll get there." Acker continues by citing the SAMHSA survey, that we used in a previous article, saying that her source 24/7 Wall St used that survey in which people 12 years an older were questioned on their past year marijuana use to compile their stats. Quoting the article with palpable excitement she says "nearly one in five people aged 12 and older in Oregon have used pot in the past year." She didn't say 1 in 5 people, no she said 1 in 5 people 12 and Older. And right after that she quotes a disturbing statistic in that only 18.3% percent of Oregonians 12 and older perceive there to be a risk of using marijuana at least once a month. When you look at the stats (Left) regarding perceived harm you will notice that its correlation to use is almost a mirror image. Acker also brings to light that the Oregon law only went into effect this past October which is why we haven't caught up to Colorado yet. But what Acker fails to mention is that normalization of marijuana started way before Oregon voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Oregon voted to legalize medical marijuana (we will delve into that later) in 1998 effectively setting up a network of drug deal.....err, I mean...Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. In setting up those dispensaries it has given Oregon teens easier access to the drug and to more options for consumption. Another thing Acker fails to mention is that in setting up this network of dispensaries Oregon has the 5th highest rate of teen marijuana use in the country as per the SAMHSA survey she so loves so much.
In closing her article Acker says "Keep it up guys. Maybe next year we'll be No. 1." So what are we to keep up? Several times in her article she mentioned teen use but did not mention anything about disapproving of teens using marijuana. Are we to keep up promoting marijuana use to our teens, is that what she is asking? Of course she is asking us to keep up in promoting teen use. If she was at all against teens using marijuana there would have been something mentioned in her article condemning it.....Alas there is nothing. We are losing our media to faux journalists such as Lizzy Acker and we need to change that. She is not the only one either. We are seeing this across the country from the Oregonian all the way to publications such as the Washington Post and even Forbes.
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